News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-06-09

the next day come III ana say: on
know about that big debt | owed you.
l have come in to get you to let me off.
, | feel so baG about it l cannot rest. Do
let me off" You reply with little I'M
patience: Il did let you off. Don't
bother yourself and bother me with any
more of that discussion.
J The following day 1 come in and say:
''My dear sir, about that debt. can
never get over the fact that 1 owed you
that money. 1t is something that weighs
on my mind like a milestone. Do for
give me that debt" This time you clear
lose your patience and say: "You are
nuisance What do you mean by this
reiteration of that affair? l am almost
sorry 1 forgave you that debt. Do you
doubt my veracity, or do you not under
stand the plain language in which | told
you that debt was canceledr
Well, my friends, there are many
Christians guilty of worse folly than
that. While it is right that they repent
of new sins and of recent sins, what is
the use of bothering yourself and insult
ing God by asking him to forgive sins
that long ago were forgiven? God has
forgotten them. Why do you not for
get them? No, you drag the load on
with you and 365 times a year, if you
pray every day, you ask God to recall
occurrences which he has not only for
given but forgotten. Quit this folly. |
do not ask you less to realize the turpi-
tude of sin, but ask you to a higher
faith in the promise of God and the full
deliverance of his mercy. He does not
much received on account, but receipt
in full, God having for Christ's sake de-
creed, ''your sins and your iniquities
will remember no more"
As far as possible, let the disagree
ables of life drop. We have enough
things in the present and there will be
enough in the future to disturb us with
out running a special train into the great
gone-by to fetch us as special freight
things left behind. Some ten years ago,
when there was great railroad strike,
l remember seeing all along the route
| from Omaha to Chicago and from Chi
cago to New York hundreds and thou
sands of freight cars switched on the
side tracks, those cars loaded with all
kinds of perishable material, decaying
| and wasting.
After the strike was over did the rail
road companies bring all that persisted
material down to the markets? No,
they threw it off where it was DESTROYED.
| and loaded up with something else Let
the long train Of your thoughts throw
off the worse than useless freight of
corrupt and destroyed past, and load up
with gratitude and faith and holy de-
termination. We do not please God by
the cultivation of the miserable. He
would rather see us happy than to see
US depressed. You would rather see
your children laugh than to see them
cry, and your heavenly Father has no
fondness for Mysteries.
GLoRYING IN wICKEDNEss.
Not only forget your pardoned trans
gressions, but allow others to forget
them The chief stock on hand of
many people is to recount in prayer
meetings and pulpits what big scoun-
drels they once were. They not only
will not forget their forgiven deficits,
but they seem to be determined that the
church and the world shall not forget
them. If you want to declare that you
have been the chief of sinners and extol
the grace that could save such a wretch
as you were, do SO, but do not go into
particulars. Do not tell how many
times you got drunk, or to what bad
places you went, or how many free rides
you had in the prison van before you
were converted. Lump it, brother;
! give it to us in bulk.
If you have any scars got in honorable
warfare, show them, but if you have
scars got in ignoble warfare, do not dis
play them. | know you will quote the
Bible reference to the horrible pit from
which you were digged. Yes, be thank
full for that rescue, but do not make dis
plays of the mud of that horrible pit or
splash it over other people. Sometimes ] |
have felt III Christian meetings discomfit- |
ed and unfit for Christian service because |
had done none of those things which |
seemed to be in the estimation of many |
necessary for Christian usefulness, for l |
never swore word, or ever got drunk, |
or went to compromising places, or was |
guilty of assault and battery, or ever |
uttered slanderous word, or ever did |
any one hurt, although knew my heart |
was sinful enough; and | said to myself, |
There is no use of my trying to do any |
good, for / never went through those de- |
PRAYED experiences" but afterward saw |
consolation in the thought that no one |
gained any ordination by the laying on |
of the hands of dissoluteness and infamy. |
And though an ordinary moral life, end |
ing in a Christian life, may not be as
dramatic story to tell about, let US be |
grateful to God rather than worry about |
it, if we have never plunged into out
ward denominations.
1t may be appropriate in a meeting of |
reformed drunkards or reformed de- |
bauchees to quote for those not reformed |
how desperate and nasty you once were, |
but do not drive a scavenger's cart into |
assemblages of people, the most of whom |
have always been decent and respect |
able. But | have been sometimes in |
great evangelistic meetings where peo-
pie went into particulars about the sins
that they once committed, so much so !
that / felt like putting my hand on my |
pocketbook or calling for the police lest |
these reformed men might fall from |
grace and go at their old business of |
theft or drunkenness or cutthroatery. |
If your sins have been forgiven and your |
life purified, forget he.waywardness of |
the past and allow others to forget it.
But what most want in the light of |
this text to impress upon my hearers
and readers is that we have sin forget |
ting God. Suppose that on the last day |
called the last day because the sun
will never again rise upon our earth, |
the earth itself being flung into fiery de-
molition-suppoSing that on that last |
day group of Internal spirits should |
somehow get near enough the gate of |
heaven and challenge our entrance, and |
say: 'How canst thou, the just Lord, |
let those souls into the realm of supernal |
gladnessT Why, they said great many
things they never ought to have said, |
and they did great many things they
ought never to have done. Sinners are
they; sinners ALL
And suppose God should deign to an
swer, he might say: Eyes, but did not
my only Son die for their ransom? Did
he not pay the price? Not one drop of
blood was retained in his arteries, not
one nerve of his that was not wrung in
the torture. He took in his own body
and soul all the suffering that those sin
ners deserve. They pleaded that sac
rifce. They took the full pardon that
promised to all who, through my Son,
earnestly applied for it, and it passed
outof my mind that they were offerd.
ers. forgot all about it. Yes, forgot
all about it. Their sins and their in
EQUITIES do / remember no more.'" A
sin-forgetting God! That is clear be
yond and far above sin pardoning God