Forgiveness, mistakes, another chance, new life,

If I were a psychiatrist, I should hardly call it wisdom to ignore this most potent of all relief procedures. Blessed is the man, happy is the man, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, in whose heart there is no guilt.

Dr. A. J. Cronin was a physician in England until his health broke, and then he became an author. He told the story of a young nurse in charge of a little boy brought to the hospital of which he was the head. The boy was desperately ill with diphtheria; his throat was choked with membrane, and he had only a slender chance to live. A tube was inserted to give him breath, but as the nurse sat by the cot she dozed off, went to sleep, and awakened to find that the tube had become blocked. Instead of following instructions, clearing the tube of membrane-a matter of nursing routine-she lost her head and committed the unpardonable sin of bolting in panic. Hysterically she called the doctor out of sleep, hut when he got there the child was dead.

He was angry beyond all power of expression that a child should die so needlessly, by such blundering, inexcusable negligence. Of course she was through; her career was finished.

That same night he dipped his pen in vitriol, wrote his report to the health board demanding her immediate expulsion and called her in and read it with voice trembling with resentment.

She stood there in pitiful silence, a thin, gawky Welsh girl, half fainting with shame and remorse. "Well, have you nothing to say for yourself?" More silence, and then a stammering plea. "Give me . . . give me another chance."

The doctor was taken aback. Certainly he had no thought of that; it was a breach of discipline, and there was nothing to do but punish her. He dismissed her, sealed his report and went to bed. That night he couldn't sleep. A queer echo of a far-off World came floating in, kept whispering, "Forgive us our trespasses ..."

Horns and halos: Wallace Hamilton, Revell Company: p.94