The tongue is far more cruel than the heart,
Since love alone makes it worth while to live,
Let all be now forgiven and forgive. (Text.)
—The Independent.
(1132)
In childhood you were guilty of your first deceit. At nightfall, with grieved face, your mother asked if you had disobeyed, and your lips uttered their first lie. Your father was a just man and stern, and he would have lifted the hand in indignation, and as a child you would have hardened your heart. But your mother, with all-comprehending and healing love, was wiser. She met the denial with silence. That night she was, if possible, more tender than ever. She lingered a little longer in the room of her little child. She smoothed the cool sheets with more delicate care, and stooping for the last kiss, she asked, “Is there anything more you want to tell me?” Then she went out and left you, with that lie, your first lie, to be your companion. Do you remember how that lie stood like a ghostly fear at the foot of your little trundle-bed? How terror arched black and sable wings above your pillow? How you tossed to and fro, until at last, broken by your mother’s love, you sprang up, felt your way through the dark hall, opened the door, flung yourself into your mother’s arms, sobbed out your confession, and was forgiven, utterly and squarely and forever forgiven? Don’t analyze your mother’s forgiveness—accept it and be healed thereby. Redemption is a passion flower, crimsoned with the blood of God’s heart. Don’t pick this passion flower to pieces, lest you lose it. The roots of God’s tree of life are fed with red rain, but the leaves of that tree, and the blossoms, heal the wounds of sinners.—N. D. Hillis.
(1133)
Mr. H. J. Whigam, a war correspondent during the Boxer troubles, tells the following incident: