s and is
smiting unceasingly. Therefore, Eugene Aram dared not trust himself
out under the stars at night, for these stars were eyes that blazed and
blazed and would not relent. But why did not the murderer, Eugene
Aram, forgive himself? When Lady Macbeth found that the water in the
basin would not wash off the red spots, but would "the multitudinous
seas incarnadine," why did not Macbeth and his wife forgive each other?
Strange, passing strange, that Shakespeare thought volcanic fires
within and forked lightning without were but the symbols of the storm
that breaks upon the eternal orb of each man's soul. If David cannot
forgive himself, if Peter cannot forgive Judas, who can forgive sins?
"Perhaps the gods may," said Plato to Socrates. "I do not know,"
answered the philosopher. "I do not know that it would be safe for the
gods to pardon." So the poet sends Macbeth out into the black night
and the blinding storm to be thrown to the ground by forces that twist
off trees and hiss among the wounded boughs and bleeding branches.

For poor Jean Valjean, weeping bitterly for his sins, while he watched
the boy play with the buttercups and prayed that God would give him,
the red and horny-handed criminal, to feel again as he felt when he
pressed his dewy cheek against his mother's knee--for Jean Valjean is
there no suffering friend, no forgiving heart? Is there no bosom where
poor Magdalene can sob out her bitter confession? What if God were the
soul's father! What if he too serves and suffers vicariously! What if
his throne is not marble but mercy! What if nature and life do but
interpret in the small this divine principle existing in the large in
him who is infinite! [1] What if Calvary is God's eternal heartache,
manifest in time! What if, sore-footed and heavy-hearted, bruised with
many a fall, we should come back to the old home, from which once we
fled away, gay and foolish prodigals! The time was when, as small boys
and girls, with blinding tears, we groped toward the mother's bosom and
sobbed out our bitter pain and sorrow with the full story of our sin.
What if the form on Calvary were like the king of eternity, toiling up
the hill of time, his feet bare, his locks all wet with the dew of
night, while he cries: "Oh, Absalom! my son, my son, Absalom!" What if
we are Absalom, and have hurt God's heart! Reason staggers. Groping,
trusting, hoping, we fall blindly on the stairs that slope through
darkness