the next day he says: "Papa, I wish you would forgive me for the
wrong I did yesterday." I should say: "Why, my son, that thing is
settled; and I don't want it mentioned again." "But I wish you would
forgive me: it would help me to hear you say, 'I forgive you.'" Would
that be honoring me? Would it not grieve me to have my boy doubt me?
But to gratify him I say again, "I forgive you, my son."

And if, the next day, he were again to bring up that old sin, and ask
forgiveness, would not that grieve me to the heart? And so, my dear
reader, if God has forgiven us, never let us mention the past. Let us
forget those things which are behind, and reach forth unto those
which are before, and press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let the sins of the past go; for "If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John i. 9).

And let me say that this principle is recognized in courts of
justice. A case came up in the courts of a country--I won't say
where--in which a man had had trouble with his wife; but he forgave
her, and then afterwards brought her into court. And, when it was
known that he had forgiven her, the judge said that the thing was
settled. The judge recognized the soundness of the principle, that if
a sin were once forgiven there was an end of it. And do you think the
Judge of all the earth will forgive you and me, and open the question
again? Our sins are gone for time and eternity, if God forgives: and
what we have to do is to confess and forsake our sins.

Again in 2 Corinthians xiii. 5: "Examine yourselves whether ye be in
the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how
that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" Now examine
yourselves. Try your religion. Put it to the test. Can you forgive an
enemy? That is a good way to know if you are a child of God. Can you
forgive an injury, or take an affront, as Christ did? Can you be
censured for doing well, and not murmur? Can you be misjudged and
misrepresented, and yet keep a Christ-like spirit?

Another good test is to read Galatians v., and notice the fruits of
the Spirit; and see if you have them. "The fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." If I have the
fruits of the Spirit I must have the Spirit. I could not have the
frui