aveller
who throws a great many stones out of the burden which he carries, and
so walks with ease along the road; the other is like a traveller who
gathers a great many stones on the way-side, and adds them to his
burden, and is therefore soon crushed by the load.

But more than this: the foolish man who made his burden heavier, retains
the redoubled weight upon his back; while the wise man who made his
burden lighter, contrives to throw off even the smaller weight that
remained. The same spirit that induced the suffering Christian to
diminish his estimate of the injury, induces him to forgive even that
which remains, and thus he gets quit of it altogether; for to forgive
it, is equivalent to throwing it away, in as far as it had power to
burden or irritate you. On the other hand, the same spirit which in an
irritable man magnified and multiplied the actual injury which he
received, prevents him from forgiving the great and exaggerated mass;
thus in effect he is crushed under the accumulated weight of all the
real injury he has sustained, and all the imaginary injury he has added.
The compassionate, loving man, who counted the great injury small, was
relieved even of that small remnant by forgiving it: the selfish,
unloving man, who counted a small injury great, could not forgive his
neighbour, and so was compelled to bear the heavy burden on his heart.
In this case that sublime rule of the Scripture takes effect: "To him
that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that
hath not shall be taken even that which he hath." [32]

[32] Fred. Arndt puts the lesson warmly and well; his appeal is in
substance this:--"A man without compassion has all against him, God
and the world; and meets as many adversaries in judgment as he had
associates in life. Woe to him who is arraigned in secret by the
tears of the feeble and oppressed! The sighs which he has pressed
out, the plaints which he has generated, cry up to heaven against
him, and their echo clangs horrid from heaven down again upon the
life of the loveless and revengeful.... And can we sleep in peace
another hour, as long as there are men upon the earth with whom we
live in unpeace and enmity? Cannot be written the happiness, the
inward bliss of the peaceful and peace-making. Revenge, indeed,
seems often sweet to men; but, oh, it is only sugared poison, only
sweetened gall, and its after taste is bitter as hell. Forgiving,