Precept & Practice – APRIL 6 – Hedgehog Forgiveness

There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.

Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him, and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fiery fists, then they forgive him.

H. W. Beecher

Human forgiveness in its highest form means, indeed, nothing but the supplanting of the resentment with which the sense of injury naturally fills us, by an intense longing to do good to those who (as we think, at least) have done evil to us;  and that is a feeling which we ought to entertain towards all men, whether they be in the deepest sense corrupted by evil, or whether they be nothing more than unintentional offenders against ourselves.   Forgiveness of this kind involves nothing more than a victory over our own petty feelings or fastidious aversions.   It is, of course, by no means easy actually to do good to those who are utterly without the desire to be good;  and it is only possible on condition that you can inspire them with at least a germ of that desire.  But whether it be easy or difficult to do good to those who are evil, it is at least possible for every one to wish to do such good, and to be ready to do it on the first intimation that it is possible, in spite of any lingering resentment, or even moral loathing.  And that is all, so far as we can see, which is involved in human forgiveness.

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW