“They are no longer there, my friend,” returned Marston, with visible emotion, now grasping the hand of Arnest.  “You have wiped them out.”

Arnest returned the pressure with both hands, his eyes fixed on those of Marston, until they grew so dim that he could no longer read the old familiar lines and forgiving look.

“Let us forgive and forget,” said Marston, speaking in a broken voice.  “We have wronged each other and ourselves.  We have let evil passions rule instead of good affections.”

“From my heart do I say ‘Amen,’” replied Arnest.  “Yes, let us forgive and forget.  Would that we had been as wise as we now are, years ago!”

Thus were they reconciled.  And now the question is, What did either gain by his indignation against the other?  Did Arnest rise higher in his self-esteem, or Marston gain additional self-respect?  We think not.  Alas! how blinding is selfish passion!  How it opens in the mind the door for the influx of multitudes of evil and false suggestions!  How it hides the good in others, and magnifies, weakness into crimes!  Let us beware of it.

“Reconciled at last,” said old Mr. Wellford, when he next saw Arnest and heard the fact from his lips.

“Yes,” replied the latter.  “I can now forget as well as forgive.”

“Rather say you can forget, because you forgive.  If you had forgiven truly, you could have ceased to think of what was wrong in your friend long ago.  People talk of forgiving and not forgetting, but it isn’t so:  they do not forget because they do not forgive.”

“I believe you are right,” said Arnest.  “I think, now, as naturally of my friend’s good qualities as I ever did before of what was evil.  I forget the evil in thinking of the good.”

“Because you have forgiven him,” returned Mr. Wellford.  “Before you forgave him, your thought of evil gave no room for the thought of good.”

Mr. Wellford was right.  After we have forgiven, we find it no hard matter to forget.

PAYING THE MINISTER.

“MONEY, money, money!  That’s the everlasting cry!  I’ll give up my pew.  I won’t go to church.  I’ll stay at home and read the Bible.  Not that I care for a few dollars more than I do for the dust that blows in the wind; but this selling of salvation for gold disgusts me.  I’m sick to death of it!”

“But hear, first, Mr. Larkin, what we want money for,” said Mr. Elder, one of the vestrymen of the church to which the former belonged.  “You know that our minister’s salary is very small; in fact, entirely insufficient for the maintenance of his family.  He has, as might be supposed, fallen into debt, and we are making an effort to raise a sufficient sum to relieve him from his unpleasant embarrassment.”

“But what business has he to go in debt, Mr. Elder?  He knows the amount of his income, and, as an honest man, should not let his expenses exceed it.”