"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit. Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in every emergency."
"Is that Christianity?" he ventured.
"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you know what he believes—always."
"Suppose I forgive—what then?"
"Service. You are needed right now, Dave—forgive my frankness—your country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be misunderstood."
"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable."
"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be defeated, ultimately,—and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than either."
"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that test, why should I—or any one else—fight? And," he added as an after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?"
"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse must be love, not hate."
She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument. What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the detail and circumstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a strange and new ambition—an ambition which deepened and enriched every phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew that even yet——