.

In the foregoing pages we have seen to what kind of treatment He was
subjected from the arrest onwards--how the minions of authority struck
and insulted Him, how the high priests twisted the forms of law to
ensnare Him, how Herod disdained Him, how Pilate played fast and loose
with His interests, how the mob howled at Him. Our hearts have burned
with indignation as one depth of baseness has opened beneath another;
and we have been unable to refrain from using hard language. The
comment of Jesus on it all was, "Father, forgive them."

Long ago, indeed, He had taught men, "Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you and persecute you." But this morality of the
Sermon on the Mount had been considered, as the world still inclines to
consider it, a beautiful dream. There have been many teachers who have
said such beautiful things; but what a difference there is between
preaching and practice! When you have been delighted with the
sentiments of an author, it is frequently well that you know no more
about him; because, if you chance to become acquainted with the facts
of his own life, you experience a painful disillusionment. Have not
students even of our own English literature in very recent times
learned to be afraid to read the biographies of literary men, lest the
beautiful structure of sentiments which they have gathered from their
writings should be shattered by the truth about themselves? But Jesus
practised what He taught. He is the one teacher of mankind in whom the
sentiment and the act completely coincide. His doctrine was the very
highest: too high it often seems for this world. But how much more
practical it appears when we see it in action. He proved that it can
be realised on earth when on the cross He prayed, "Father, forgive
them."

Few of us, perhaps, know what it is to forgive. We have never been
deeply wronged; very likely many of us have not a single enemy in the
world. But those who have are aware how difficult it is; perhaps
nothing else is more difficult. Revenge is one of the sweetest
satisfactions to the natural heart. The law of the ancient world was,
at least in practice, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine
enemy." Even saints, in the Old Testament, curse those who have
persecuted and wronged them in terms of uncompromising severity. Had
Jesus followed these and, as soon as He was able to s