The Mississippi Creole

FORGIVENESS.—My heart was heavy, for its trust had been abused, its kindness answered by foul wrong; so, turning gloomily from my fellow men, one summer Sabbath day, I strolled along the green mounds of the village burial place; here I was reminded how all human love and hate find one sad level, and how, sooner or later, the wronged and the wrong doer, each with a blackened face, and cold hands folded over a still heart, pass the green threshold of a common grave, whither all footsteps tend—whence none depart. Awed for myself, and pitying my race, one common sorrow, like a mighty wave, swept all my pride away, and, trembling, I forgave.—J. G. Whittier.