Let By-gones be By-gones?

"We are told by the modern preacher simply to repent and let by-gones be by-gones. But what a heartless thing is such repentance! We escape into some higher, happier, respectable life. But what of those we by our example and by our words have helped to drag down to the brink of hell? We forget them and let by-gones be by-gones.

Such repentance will never wipe out the guilt of sin--not even sin committed against our fellow-men, to say nothing of sin against our God. The truly penitent man longs to wipe out effects of sin, not merely to forget sin."

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 134.