It might not be many steps to take; still I had to take those steps. They were possible steps for me, because they were right.
"And I will say unto Him, Father—"
There, behind the pillar, in the dimly-lighted country Church, my whole self seemed to give a leap forward, hurrying towards the Father whom I had wronged; and a voice in my heart cried out, "Father!"
It was the cry which had brought to me before the lesser forgiveness which I had craved.
"Father!" I cried, and no man in the congregation heard; but He was listening.
"Father, I have sinned against Thee!" I tried to pray this, and I tried to ask pardon "for Jesus' sake." Then I remembered that Jesus is One with the Father, and that He, as God, is my Father. Isn't He called so once in the Bible, "the Everlasting Father"? Speaking to Him is speaking to God. And no common words of prayer would come, but only the one cry, a child's cry, out of danger and distress— "Father! Father! Father!"
Then the other time came back to me, when I had said the same word, and my earthly father had taken me in his arms, putting away the past, forgiving and showing love.
I thought how it was to be the same over again. For "when he saw his son a great way off, he ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
So poor and weak, so unworthy of any such love! Could I hope or expect—?
I don't know about the hoping or expecting. But I know that was the manner of forgiveness which came to me. I could not stand or sit. I could only kneel, with face hidden, feeling that I had arisen, and that my Father's "Everlasting Arms" were around me.