positive flame of hatred. Now, of all this Christ says,

66

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies." "Is there not an error in that translation?" you say; for, when the Bible reads as people do not wish it to, they think there is some mistake in the Greek. No: there is no error in the translation. "But it only means that we should feel kindly towards them, and let them alone." Not at all. "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children. of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." You must not only chain these thoughts of hatred, and put them down into the dungeon, but you must call up a choir of sweet singers in their places. Every time your enemy fires a curse, you must fire a blessing; and so you are to bombard back and forth with this kind of artillery. The mother grace of all the graces is Christian good will.

Beecher.

There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world, a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.

Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him; and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fiery fists, then — they forgive him.

Id.

As we do not keep tinder in every box in the house, so we do not keep the sense of anger in every faculty. When one comes against the door of some faculties with an injury, we look over the railing, and say, "I'll forgive you for that; for you did not get in." But by and by, when the faculty where we are sensitive is entered, then we grind our teeth, and say, "I could have forgiven him for any thing but that!"

We must not arrogate to ourselves a spirit of forgiveness until we have been touched to the quick where we are sensitive, and borne it meekly: and meekness is not mere white-facedness, a mere contemplative virtue; it is maintaining peace and patience in the midst of pelting provocations.

Id.

A forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it can never be shown against the man.

Id.

THE ANDERSONVILLE PRISONER.

On my way from the West, circumstances again impelled a journey over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. At Bell Air, below Wheeling, we were detained one night; and, an hour before leaving, we were brought face to face with a car-load of Andersonville prisoners. I do not intend to harrow up the feelings of my readers by describing, or attempting to describe, — for adequate description is impossible,—the work which the slaveholding chivalry has wrought upon our noble soldiers. Only to show what it has not wrought is my present purpose.

One man among the crowd had his wife with him. She had met him at Annapolis two months since, and there had nursed him all that time, wooing and winning him back to life by her potent love and care. Oh, what a wreck of manhood he was! Skeleton is the only word. How the dark despair had lined and re-lined that noble face! I shuddered as I looked; yet his wife said, with an almost jubilant smile, as she laid her hand on his head, "Oh, my dear lady, he has improved wonderfully: he is well now!"

Well now! What could she mean? A poor fellow lifted his head, and said languidly, "Ten thousand

like him died; and he would have died too if it hadn't been for her."

I expressed some words of indignation, suggestive of retaliation.

"My God!" said the man with all the force he was able to control, "don't talk of that: I don't want any of them to suffer as we have done. God forgive them! I do." Only a murmur, as if that was the feeling, stirred the group that sat under the shed to avoid the pitiless storm. The rebels had not destroyed his humanity. So broken, so sad, so suffering; yet without revenge: stopped on their way for hours; yet patiently waiting, fainting, and, with tottering steps, pacing to and fro, without a murmur or a word against any one. Many of them only had furloughs of thirty days. Oh, what a lesson they have learned! — that naught on earth of disappointment, sorrow, or pain, can ever reach the ultimate of the slaveholders' wrath; that God has nothing in store for them that can add one pang above what they have already endured.

Oh, what missionaries they will be, that army of skeletons, scattering up and down the States, telling, in low wailing tones of weakness and despair, the frightful story of wrong, of which the earth hath not heard the like! What will slavery be to them in all

time to come -to them and their children, and their children's children but the direst curse God has permitted to fall on the children of men? And yet these men could say of their crucifiers, "Forgive them: they know not what they do." What miracles hath liberty wrought!

F. D. Gage.

THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS.

I read, the other day, of an officer in the army who had long tried in vain to reform a careless and disobedient soldier. For some offense which was subversive of good order and the public welfare, the man had been repeatedly and justly punished. But he only seemed to grow more reckless and hardened, taking no pains to avoid the wrong-doing or its penalty.

At length a friend suggested to the discouraged officer a trial of the power of forgiveness. He consented to the use of a remedy unknown in the ordinary routine of military discipline, and the offender was brought before him. He came in with a sullen and lowering brow. When asked concerning his guilt, and his knowledge of the rules which he had