Forgivness of a Child

Wow!

An incident which impressed me deeply then and its impress has never faded happened when I was in the vicinity of ten years old.  My father had told me to go to bed.  I honestly thought he meant when I had finished a quite legitimate and proper occupation, for I was hobnobbing with a little crony of my age who had come to the house with an older person.  I remained talking with him.  My father, later passing through the room and finding that I had not obeyed him, spoke with that directness of which he was capable, called brusqueness by some, and ordered me to bed at once.  There was no standing on the order of my going after this.  I retreated, frightened and in tears, for such a tone of voice was a new experience in my life.  I hurried to bed, but before I had time to fall asleep, he was at my bedside, kneeling and asking my forgiveness for the harsh way in which he had spoken to me, the tears falling down over his rugged, bearded face.  That was nearly half a century ago, but I would exchange any memory of life before I would surrender that.  For all unknowing he was laying for me the consciousness of the Fatherhood of God, and the love of God  No sermon on the prodigal's father, and no words on the love of God have cast quite such a light as his huge figure kneeling in the twilight by my bed, asking the forgiveness of a child.

Paul Dwight Moody