Hasten to forgive
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There were two identical twin boys. The boys’ lives became inseparably intertwined. From the first they dressed alike, went to the same schools, and did all the same things. In fact, they were so close that neither ever married, but they returned home and took over the family business when their father died. Their relationship was pointed to as a model of creative collaboration.
One morning a customer came into the store and made a small purchase. The brother who waited on him put the dollar bill on top of the cash register and walked to the front door with the man. Sometime later he remembered what he had done, but when he went to the cash register, the dollar was gone. He asked his brother if he had seen the money and out it in the register, and the brother replied that he knew nothing of the money in question.
“That’s funny.” Said the other, “I distinctly remember placing the bill here on the register, and no one else has been in the store since then.”
Had the matter been dropped at that point-a mystery involving a tiny amount of money-nothing would have come of it. However, an hour later, this time with a noticeable hint of suspicion in his voice, the brother asked again, “Are you sure you didn’t see that dollar bill and put it into the register?” The other brother was quick to catch the note of accusation, and flared back in defensive anger.
This was the beginning of the first serious breach of trust that had ever come between these two. It grew wider and wider. Every time they tried to discuss the issue, new charges and countercharges got mixed into the brew, until finally things got so bad that they were forced to dissolve their partnership. They ran a partition down the middle of the store and turned what had once been a harmonious partnership into an angry competition. In fact, that business became a source of division in the whole community, each twin trying to enlist allies for him against the other. This warfare went on for more than twenty years.
Then one day a car with an out-of-state license plate parked in front of the store. A well-dressed man got out, went into one of the sides, and inquired how long the merchant had been in business in that location. When the man learned it was more than twenty years, the stranger said, “Then you are the one with whom I must settle an old score.
“Some twenty years ago, “he said. “ I was out of work, drifting from place to place, and I happened to get off a boxcar in your town. I had absolutely no money and had not eaten for three days. As I was walking down the alley behind your store, I looked in and saw a dollar bill on the top of the cash register. Everyone else was in the front of the store. I had been raised in a Christian home and I had never before in all my life stolen anything, but that morning I was so hungry, I gave in to the temptation, slipped through the door, and took that dollar bill. That act has weighed on my conscience ever since, and I finally decided that I would never be at peace until I came back and faced up to that old sin and made amends. Would you let me now replace that money and pay you whatever is appropriate for the damage?”
The stranger was surprised to see the old man shaking his head in dismay and beginning to weep. When that brother had gotten control of himself, he took the stranger by the same story you have just told me.” The stranger did, only this time there were two old men, who looked remarkably alike, both weeping uncontrollably.
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