If you want to see punishment and forgiveness both in one, turn to the parable of the prodigal son. Could any punishment be more salutary or more piercing to the man whose penitence had shown him his utter unworthiness? Could forgiveness be more complete, more gracious, than that which he received? Consider how his penitence must have been deepened, and his sense of unworthiness increased, when he found himself in his father's arms, and his father's house, honoured, rejoiced over, feasted? In proportion to the depth and fulness of penitence do these two, punishment and forgiveness, given in love, become distinguishable only by the reaction to them of the penitent. He alone knows how love hurts and heals in one and the same act and moment. Then, if you want to learn the many forms punishment may take, seek further. Look at the story of the woman taken in adultery. 'Hath no man condemned thee?' ... 'Neither do I condemn thee: go, and _sin no more_.' Punishment and forgiveness imparted in one profound paradox of love's judgement. What do you think was its effect on the woman who had looked into the prophet's eyes as he lifted them from the dust? 'Hath no man condemned thee?' 'No man, Lord,' she said; and they were the words humility and shame would choose. A degree further—consider the picture of a final judgement, with the 'Son of man in his glory' and the nations gathered before him to be shown their union with him, or their disunion, in a clearness none could mistake. 'Come, ye blessed,' he says, 'inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world'—the kingdom in which all men are one with the Holiest, with the living Truth himself and Beauty 'in his glory'—come with me. For I was an hungred, thirsty, a stranger.... Naked and ye clothed me, sick, in prison, and ye came unto me.... And yet these blessed had never known what they did. It was not he, so far as they knew, that they had succoured. Not for his sake but for love's they had done it; not even, indeed, at the heart of it, for love's sake, but because they loved, because in them the well-spring of love streamed forth and they gave their very selves to those others who had only need of them. They were of love and were love's own. Love as shown to these who needed it was not distinguishable, even by their reaction to it, into punishment and forgiveness. It was but love.