rtificial
limit laid by Peter, and by the Pharisees before him, on the disposition
to forgive an offending brother, and to leave it limitless,--infinite,
as far as the faculties and the time of men can reach.

I think the substance of the lesson may be expressed in these two words,
the _practice_ and the _principle_ of forgiving injuries. These two are
in effect the _ultimate act_ and the _secret power_ that produced it.
They are at once distinguished and united in that new commandment which
Jesus gave to his disciples,--"That ye love one another, as I have loved
you" (John xiii. 34). The first part of that commandment tells what
they ought to do, and the second part tells what will make them do it.
It is when they place themselves under the power of Christ's forgiving
love to themselves, that they are impelled in turn to forgive each his
brother. The duty corresponds to the moving machinery, and the motive to
the stream of living water which makes the machinery go.

1. The PRACTICE of forgiving injuries. The terms employed indicate
clearly enough that the injuries which man suffers from his fellow are
trifling in amount, especially in comparison of each man's guilt in the
sight of God. There is a meaning in the vast and startling difference
between ten thousand talents and a hundred pence. Even when the injury
is the greatest that human beings are capable of inflicting on the one
side, and enduring on the other; even when an enemy has killed the body
and ceased then, because he has no more that he can do, it is still a
measurable thing. Love in a finite being's heart may swell high over it,
and exult in bestowing forgiveness on the murderer with the victim's
dying breath. In the beginning of the Gospel a vivid example of that
very thing stands recorded: "Lord," said Stephen with fainting heart and
failing breath, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Great as the
injury was, according to earthly measurements, the imperfect love that
lived in a man's heart was more than a match for it, and the martyr with
his dying breath forgave his murderers. But how rare are those injuries
that rise to this extreme height! Most of the injuries with which we are
called to deal are small, even in relation to human capacity: they are
very often precisely of the size that our own temper makes them. Some
people possess the art of esteeming great injuries small, and some the
art of esteeming small injuries great. The first is like a tr