The Beloved Sinner
eminently right, forgiveness being due for the greatest as well as for the least of offences. The Frenchman or the Belgian who forgives "from his heart" reaches a higher standard than we do; but the ethics of Christianity bind him to that standard. It is his supreme spiritual test.
What was less endearing in Mr. Clutton-Brock's sermon was the playful manner in which he made light of wrongs which, to say the least, were not matters for sport. We were called on to pardon, "not as an act of virtue, but in good-humour, because we are all absurd, and all need forgiveness.… We all fail, and we have no right to say that another man's, or another nation's, failure is worse than our own.… We must govern our behaviour to each other by the axiom that no man is to be judged by his past."
These sentences aptly illustrate my contention that the sentimentalist is as
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