MERCY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

MERCY.

(By S.)

Three things may be said of people who are merciful. In the lirst place, they show human nature at its b.si, even when there is little so-called religiousness about them. It is possible U> bo religious, and yet to be cold, and hard, and unforgiving. As Rowland Hill used to say, a man's religion is noo worth much that does not make him lovablo to his dog and cat, and that doe.? not make his dog and cat the better fer it. We may not have many opportunities to do something great, but we have innumerable} opportunities to show ourselves merciful—to help a needy brother, to visit the fatherless and widow in their affliction, to forgive the neighbour who hns wronged us by word or deed, and to abstain from circulating reports about him that will injure his reputation and destroy his peace of mind.

Wo have innumerable opportunities to be gracious and courteous, to bo chivalrous and tender-hearted. To make use of them is to show human nature at its best. Then merciful people show themselves like Christ. It is a striking fact that He never onco sought mercy from others, not even at Calvary. We have no record of a prayer for pity ever falling from His lips. But He was full of pity for others. He was moved wifct compassion in tho presence of sorrow and suffering, and of hunger and poverty. He yearned over, and relieved tho distress of the men who had not, hi His hour of bitterness, an atom of pity for Him. Even in tho hour of liis triumph, and, 'mid the hosannas of tho multitude, He wept over the impending doom of the wicked city. Even in tho agonies of His awful death He forgave the penitent thief, and prayed for His impenitent and unforgiving enemies. He is our pattern of a great and good Man. To be merciful is to be like Him And, then, too, merciful people show themselves like God, for He was God manifest in the flesh, God fulfilling all tho wonderful descriptions of the Supreme Being that are given in the Old Testament Scriptures. And what wonderful descriptions they are. How they ought, not only to fill us with joy, but to inspire in us a Godlike spirit towards one another. Take two or three of them. God is "full of compassion," "slow to anger," "longsuffering," "ready to forgive," to blot out our sins," to be "good and gracious" to us. God is "great" in mercy, "plenteous" in mercy, "abundant" in mercy, "rich" in mercy, "tender" in His mercy. He "delights" in mercy, so delights in it that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but delivered Him up to the death of the Cross, so that the worst of us, the most sinful of us, can say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." Yes, to bo morciful is to show human nature at its best, to be like Christ, and to resemblo God, a sublime truth we were taught in tho morning of life when we were set to copy Pope's immortal line: "To err is human; to forgive divine.