Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/94

90 flowing from the heart. You may have frequently heard persons profess to forgive in terms like the following. I pardon him for what he has done to me; I only wish the poor creature may be able to forgive himself. I leave him to God and his own conscience. Now this discovers a want of sincerity, and shows an inward bitterness of spirit, utterly at variance with a forgiving temper. This is not the way that Christ forgives:—He forgives sincerely "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." How amiable and benign is the spirit of Christianity! Like its divine author, its high mission is to promote true peace, good order and happiness among men. In what a glorious state would be our world, were it entirely under its holy influence. Earth then, would be but the counterpart of heaven. If all cultivated the spirit of forbearance and forgiveness, where there is now strife, contentions, animosities and revenge, the angel of peace, with his