He maintained that
though some mischiefs--perhaps most mischiefs--were irreparable so
far as restoring the original status was concerned, yet every
mischief was reparable in the good-will and the good deed of its
perpetrator. Do what you could to retrieve yourself from error, and
then, not leave the rest to Providence, but keep doing. The good,
however small, must grow if tended and nurtured like a useful plant,
as the evil would certainly grow, like a wild and poisonous weed, if
left to itself. Sin, he said, was a terrible mystery; one scarcely
knew how to deal with it or to attempt to determine its nature; but
perhaps--he threw out the thought while warning those who heard him
of its danger in some aspects--sin was not wholly an evil. We were
so apt in this world of struggle and ambition to become centred
solely in ourselves, that possibly the wrong done to another,--the
wrong that turned our thoughts from ourselves, and kept them bent in
agony and despair upon the suffering we had caused another, and knew
not how to mitigate--possibly this wrong, nay, certainly this wrong,
was good in disguise. But, returning to his original point, we were
to beware how we rested in this despair. In the very extremity of
our anguish, our fear, our shame, we were to gird ourselves up to
reparation. Strive to do good, he preached; strive most of all to do
good to those you have done harm to.
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