| Show WITH THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASSICS 1 i by BOYD 0 by margaret boyd I 1 repentance attar what been going go ng on for sixteen years year slmaa silas marner godfrey had let his daughter go eo un on claimed for sixteen aars thep then ho went to ask for or tier her said he wag sorry lie lad find not claimed her eart curlier ler and seemed to think hit his repentance nil all that was needed to undo the past epple meanwhile had grown up na the weavers foster child find been educated in the weavers beliefs and had fallen alien in love with one of the weavers own rank silas here points out that no amount of repentance can change what line hag already been done what belongs to tile lie post past godfrey overestimated the value 41 repentance so do many of tile the rest of us the value of repentance Is 1 to the one who repents not to those he hns has wronged the repentance of the thief on the cross did not in the least alter the harm lie he had doue done during his lifetime the widow whom he had find robbed and who had find starved because of his robbery was ivas not fed ballis by his na rr Ien otance tance the orphan whom he robbed of the money for hla his schooling was not educated hy his repentance nor were the years and opportunity that were lost for lack of that education resto restored to the victim by the thiefs re repentance pentane the man who lost faith in humanity b because his friend stole from hint him did n not ot have bavo ills faith restored because tile the thief repented the value of the repentance pen tance tince was to the thief alef not to those who had suffered buffered because of ills his thefts repentance has two merits it offers promise of betler beher conduct in the future on the part of the tha one who repents find and it establishes tile ali standards of men its as correct it if men did wrong continually and repented of their w wrongdoing we should lose faith in 0 our ur standards of conduct we should b egin begin to think that tj in I 1 what we believed wrong must really bo be right the fundamental law lav of our moral belief la Is that while we do right we do not wish we halt had acted differently ferent ly but that as soon oon as we do wrong we begin to wish that wo we had acted otherwise A man never I 1 I 1 to td undo ido a good deed but always wishes he could undo a wicked deed that Is we never repent of doing good but always repent of doing evil this belief Is to mortality what gravitation Is to the physical world if a man does wrong and never repents of that wrongdoing we art are left with the same feeling that we should have if we threw chrey a stone atone up in the air and it never returned to the earth repentance therefore serves to establish our standards of right and wrong just as the returning stone serves to establish the law of gravitation for man la Is man and master of his fate idyll of the aing ang tills this Is the spirit that we find set forth in henleys Hen llen leys In victus out of tte the night that covers me black ns as tho pit fit from pole to pole I 1 think thank whatever gods god may be for my mr unconquerable soul 4 it matters matter not how strait the gate how charged with punish punishments mento the scroll I 1 am master of my fate I 1 am in the cap captain t aln of in my y soul few men however are anre satisfied to be ro asters of their own ratel fate they wish to be masters of the universe and its fate as well as puts it when it Is in our power to 0 o take cure of one thing and to apply to one we choose rather to take care of ninny many find and to ourselves wIth ninny many body property brother mend friend child and slave and by this multiplicity of incumbrances we are burdened ani and wel weighed glied down thus when the he weather doth not happen to be fair for palling calling we sit alt screwing ourselves and perpetually looking out which way Is the wind north what have we to do with that when will the he west est wind blow when itself friend or aeolus pleases for jupiter line has not made you dispenser of the th winds ilni vl ni but kellug just as descartes Dea cartes arrived at his philosophy of belief through first doubting everything even mathematics so a nan man becomes roaster master of his tile through being alle able to may bay alneer sincerely ply conduct me ma jove and tholo destiny wherever your decrees decree have fixed mr lot or through meaning what many millions on say sak by rote meaninglessly thy will be done in earth no as it Is to in heaven points out diogenes as an example of a man who was matter master of his bis fate end and captain of his soul goul not because ho he was of free re parents for he was not but because he was so him felt edt because he had cast away fill all the handles of 0 slavery nor was there here liny any way of getting tit a him nor anywhere to lay hold on hint him t to enslave him everything sat loose upon him everything only just hung bung on it if you took hold on tile his he would rather let them go than follow fo llor you fo them thea if on its hla let lei he be leago let RO lilg leg if his bis bady he let jet go his body acquaintance lo tance friends country just th sa tame me but lie he would never have for or oaken his true parents parent tb the X cods ait oit his real country |
