Nowhere in Scripture, perhaps, have we such a lesson on the difficulty
of forgiveness as in the reference to Alexander the coppersmith, in St.
Paul's last letter to Timothy. Even if we read his words in the modified
and undoubtedly accurate form in which they are found in the Revised
Version, we still feel how far short they come of the standard of
Christ. "Paul," says Dr. Whyte, "was put by Alexander to the last trial
and sorest temptation of an apostolic and a sanctified heart."[45] And
with all the greatness of our regard for the great apostle, we dare not
say that he came out of the trial wholly unscathed. Did ever any man
come out of such a fire unhurt--any save One? Yet it is not for me to
sit in judgment on St. Paul; only let us remember we have no warrant
from God to hate any man and to hand him over to eternal judgment even
though, like Alexander, he heap insult and injury, not only upon
ourselves, but upon the cause and Church of Christ.

(3) And then to this native, inborn unwillingness to forgive there comes
in to strengthen it our knowledge of the fact that forgiveness is
sometimes mistaken for, and does, in fact, sometimes degenerate into,
the moral weakness which slurs over a fault, and refuses to strike only
because it dare not. Nevertheless, though there be counterfeits current,
there is a reality; there is a forgiving spirit which has no kinship
with cowardice or weakness or mere mushiness of character, but which is
the offspring of strength and goodness and mercy, in short, of all in
man that is likest God. And it is _this_ not that which God bids us make
our own; and not the less so because in the rough ways of the world that
so often passes for this.

III

It would be easy to go on enumerating difficulties, but long as the
enumeration might be, Christ's command would still remain in all its
explicitness, the Divine obligation would be in no way weakened. We must
forgive; we must forgive from our hearts; and there must be no limit to
our forgiveness. Nor is this all. The whole law of forgiveness is not
fulfilled when one who has done us an injury has come humbly making
confession, and we have accepted the confession and agreed to let
bygones be bygones. We should be heartless wretches indeed, if, under
such circumstances, we were not willing to do as much as that. But we
must do more: "If thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault
between thee and him alone; if he hear thee, thou ha