In that beautiful prayer which our blessed Lord left to His disciples, we have amongst other petitions, one especially directed to the forgiveness of sin. We ask God to forgive us what we have done amiss against Him, and call Him to witness that we forgive our brother who has sinned against us. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." You see it is as much as saying to God, that we _don’t_ want Him to forgive us, _unless_ He sees that we have freely forgiven any who may have sinned against us. Now it is very much easier, is it not, to speak an angry word, or to think an unkind thought of anyone who has offended us? It may be they have not even _sinned_ against us. Perhaps they have said something about us which in our hearts we know to be quite true, only we don’t want the neighbours to know it, and so we pretend it is false; and we pretend to think we have been injured, and that we have something to forgive. And many of us I fear go farther still and refuse to bestow forgiveness at all. I have known forgiveness withheld from people for the smallest reasons. A family have not received the pew in church they wanted, or their name has been omitted by mistake from a dinner list, or they were forgotten in a Christmas charity, or something of the kind. And for such trifles as these they blame the clergyman generally, forgetting that his parish work may have taken up his time, and so the mistake may have arisen. And yet these people are nothing loth to kneel before their Father in Heaven, and with this unforgiven trespass on their hearts they pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Perhaps you may say, "I don’t see that it matters much to people whether I forgive them or not. I am but a poor man, and my love or my hatred can’t make much difference to them." But reader, I answer, whether your friend be rich or poor, if he be a true friend, it will always make the greatest difference to him, if he have done you hurt, whether he have your forgiveness or no. And more than this, it matters very much indeed to Him who has said, "If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses." And just think what an awful feeling it would be for you, if you heard that a person with whom you had a quarrel, had died suddenly, and carried the sense of his unforgiven trespass into the world to come.