Carl’s cheeks were very red. “Why, father, don’t you know—surely you remember? I wrote about it.”
“But surely, my boy, I wrote you about it! Did I not tell you I forgave you utterly?”
“O, yes, sir! but then I thought—that you would think”—Carl stopped in confusion.
“You thought I must remember the sin, and punish the sinner, even though I had forgiven him? Is that it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Carl, low-voiced and troubled.
“No,” said Mr. Hammond, and Carl noticed how tender his voice was; “I do not remember anything about it in the sense which you mean. Do you remember my telling you once that God meant fathers to be object lessons to their children, giving them some faint idea, at least, of what kind of a father God would be to those who trusted him?”
“Yes, sir,” said Carl.
“Very well, then, here on this card, which I would like you to keep in your Bible, is my answer to your question.”
The card was a lovely blue celluloid, and had printed on it in gold letters, the words, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
One evening, when Carl was twenty years old, he repeated that verse in a Christian Endeavor prayer meeting, and said that his father’s commentary on it had made him understand it. Then he told, in brief, the story which I have given you.