Article September 6, 1958 Issue

"AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS"

KATHRYN PAULSON

Forgiveness is the highest test of love, the token of compassion. Without this benign influence the heart becomes hard and inflexible, and self-righteousness— that unlovely growth of egotism— takes possession of human thought.

In his perfect example of spiritual communion called the Lord's Prayer, Christ Jesus turned mankind to God, divine Love, the source of all forgiveness, and then defined its terms. The Master prayed (Matt. 6:12), "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

Because one's obtaining divine pardon is proportionate to the expression of true forgiveness, it is helpful to consider the debts of which we need to be absolved. The Apostle Paul summarized it thus (Rom. 13:8): "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

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