# Can a Man escape his past?



## CalvinandHodges (Dec 8, 2006)

Greetings:

I have just finished reading Thomas Hardy's novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge. The novel begins with the main character, Michael Henchard, selling his wife and child in a drunken stupor. Repenting of this Henchard moves to Casterbridge, stops drinking liquor, prospers in an import/export business, and devotes his life to helping others eventually becoming the mayor.

After several years a woman comes to town who knows his past, and she reveals it to the whole town. Stripped of all respectibility he loses his mayorship, and all the good he has done faded into nothingness. At the end of the novel he is reunited with his wife, but the black mark of his past never passes away.

I found the book to be something that every Christian should read. It is about the importance of character, and it explores the title question of this thread. Thomas Hardy, I think, is not a Christian. Consequently, the gloomy picture of human failure and recovery is indicative of the natural man's view of life in general.

The book made me try to think of Biblical paradigms. David, for example, not only committed adultery, but murder as well. Yet, we see that he never lost his "mayorship" nor even his salvation. The Apostle Peter betrayed Jesus at three different times, and at one time with an oath, which is similar to what Judas did, and possibly even worse. Yet, we see him practically in the center of the church converting 3000 people in Acts 2! Paul confers with Peter after he is converted, and even mentions that Peter is a "seeming" pilar of the church.

This all made me reflect on how the church treats those who have failed in one way or another, and have shown all the Biblical marks of repentance. Do we respond as the world does and continue to beat these poor souls with the stick of their past? Or, do we embrace them in love, have compassion on them, and give them even greater status in the church?

I thought this book was thought provoking indeed.

Blessings,

-CH


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