THE VIRTUE.
Forgiveness is not inconsistent with justice. It does not do away with punishment. It spiritualizes punishment; substituting mental for bodily pains.—The sense of the evil and shame of wrongdoing, which is the essence and end of punishment, forgiveness, when it is appreciated, serves to intensify. Indeed it is impossible to inflict punishment rightly until you have first forgiven the offender. For punishment should be inflicted for the offender's good. And not until vengeance has given way to forgiveness are we able to care for the offender's well-being.
Forgiveness is a special form of love. It recognizes the humanity of the offender, and treats him as a brother, even when his deeds are most unbrotherly. But it cares so much for him that it will not shrink from inflicting whatever merciful pains may be necessary to deliver him from his own unbrotherliness. Forgiveness loves not the offense but the man. It hates the offense chiefly because it injures the man. Its punishment of the offense is the negative side of its positive devotion to the person. The command "love your enemies" is not a hard impossibility on the one hand, nor a soft piece of sentimentalism on the other. It is possible, because there is a human, loveable side, even to the worst villain, if we can only bring ourselves to think on that better side, and the possibilities which it involves. It is practical, because regard for that better side of his nature demands that we shall make him as miserable in his wrongdoing as is necessary to lead him to abandon his wrongdoing, and give the better possibilities of his nature a chance to develop. The parent who punishes the naughty child loves him not less but more than the parent who withholds the needed punishment. The state which suffers crime to go unpunished becomes a nursery of criminals. It wrongs itself; it wrongs honest citizens; but most of all it wrongs the criminals themselves whom it encourages in crime by undue lenity. The object of forgiveness is not to take away punishment, but to make whatever punishment remains effective for the reformation of the offender. It is to transfer the seat of suffering from the body, where its effect is uncertain and indirect, to the mind, where sorrow for wrongdoing is powerful and efficacious. Every wrong act brings its penalty with it. In order to induce repentance and reformation that penalty must in some way be brought home to the one who did the wrong. Vengeance drives the penalty straight home, refusing to bear any part of it itself. Forgiveness first takes the penalty upon itself in sorrow for the wrong, and then invites the wrongdoer to share the sorrow which he who forgives him has already borne. Vengeance smites the body, and often drives in deeper the perversity. Forgiveness touches the heart and gently but firmly draws the heart's affections away from the wrong, into devotion to the right.
THE REWARD.
Forgiveness, rightly received, works the reformation of the offender.—And to one who ardently loves righteousness there is no joy comparable to that of seeing a man who has been doing wrong, turn from it, renounce it, and determine that henceforth he will endeavor to do right. Contrast heightens our emotions. And there is "joy over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine righteous persons that need no repentance." Deliverance from wrong is effected by the firm yet kindly presentation of the right as something still possible for us, and into which a friend stands ready to welcome us. Reformation is wrought by that blending of justice and forgiveness which at the same time holds the wrong abhorrent and the wrongdoer dear. Reformation is the end at which forgiveness aims, and its accomplishment is its own reward.
THE TEMPTATION.
The sight of heinous offenses and outrageous deeds against ourselves or others tempts us to wreak our vengeance upon the offender.—This impulse of revenge served a useful purpose in the primitive condition of human society. It still serves as the active support of righteous indignation. But it is blind and rough; and is not suited to the conditions of civilized life. Vengeance has no consideration for the true well-being of the offender. It confounds the person with the deed in wholesale condemnation. It renders evil for evil; it provokes still further retaliation; and erects a single fault into the occasion of a lasting feud. It is irrational, brutal, and inhuman; it is dangerous and degrading.
The absence of forgiveness in dealing with wrongdoers leads to undue severity.—The end of punishment being to bring the offender to realize the evil of his deed and to repent of it, punishment should not be carried beyond the point which is necessary to produce that result. To continue punishment after genuine penitence is manifested is to commit a fresh wrong ourselves. "If thy brother sin, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him." To ignore an unrepented wrong, and to continue to punish a repented wrong, are equally wide of the mark of that love for the offender which metes out to him both justice and forgiveness according to his needs. All punishment which is not tempered with forgiveness is brutal; and brutalizes both punisher and punished. It hardens the heart of the offender; and itself constitutes a new offense against him.
These principles apply strictly to relations between individuals. In the case of punishment by the state, the necessity of self-protection; of warning others; and of approximate uniformity in procedure; added to the impossibility of getting at the exact state of mind of the offender by legal processes, render it necessary to inflict penalties in many cases which are more severe than the best interest of the individual offenders requires. To meet such cases, and to mitigate the undue severity of uniform penalties when they fall too heavily on individuals, all civilized nations give the power of pardon to the executive.
