forgiven man went out and found a fellow servant who owed him--how much do
you think? Have you ever thought that Jesus had a keen sense of the
ludicrous? Surely it shows here. He owed him about sixteen dollars and
a-quarter or a-half! And you can almost feel the clutch of this fellow's
fingers on the other's throat as he sternly demands:--"Pay me that thou
owest." And his fellow earnestly replies, "Please be easy with me; I mean
to pay; I'm rather short just now: but I'm not trying to shirk; be easy
with me." Is it possible the words do not sound familiar! But he would
not, but put him in the jail. The last place to pay a debt! That is Jesus'
picture of man as He knows him who knows him best. And in effect He says
what we have been forgiven by God is as an unpayable amount. And what are
not willing to forgive is like sixteen dollars and a fraction by contrast.
What little puny folks some of us are in our thinking and feeling!

"Oh, well," some one says, "you do not know how hard it is to forgive."
You think not? I know this much:--that some persons, and some things you
_can_not forgive of yourself. But I am glad to say that I know this too
that if one allows the Spirit of Jesus to sway the heart He will make you
love persons you _can_not like. No natural affinity or drawing together
through disposition, but a real yearning love in the heart. Jesus' love,
when allowed to come in as freely as He means, fills your heart with pity
for the man who has wounded you. An infinite, tender pity that he has sunk
so low as to be capable of such actions.

But the fact to put down in the sharpest contrast of white and black is
that we must forgive freely, frankly, generously, "_even as God_," if we
are to be in prayer touch with God.

And the reason is not far to find; a double reason, Godward and Satanward.
If prayer be partnership in the highest sense then the same spirit must