prayer: " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The king, in the parable, having heard what was done, recalled his servant before him, and having upbraided him for his ingratitude, delivered him to the torturers till he should pay all the debt. There •is the third and last act in this little drama presented for our instruction. We may be inclined, perhaps, to console our guilty consciences by arguing that there is no parity between the action of the king to his servant and the attitude of God to the sinner, for in Ezechiel we read that as often as the sinner shall bewail his iniquities God shall no longer remember them. True, but still I call your attention to the closing words of the parable: " So, also, shall My heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not every one your brother from your heart." The parity is plain — plainly stated in the sermon on the mount: " If you forgive others your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you forgive not others neither will your heavenly Father forgive you." Nay, just as in the parable, judgment is now demanded for a debt already pardoned, so our subsequent sin revives the guilt and justifies the punishment even of those previously pardoned. A schoolboy, for example, misbehaves and is forgiven; he offends again and is pardoned with a warning, and so on till patience ceases to be a virtue, and his master inflicts punishment, not for one but for the whole series of offences. And by the fact that the ungrateful servant did not dare, a second time, to plead for pardon, we are taught that
