The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1892-06-17
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
TALMAGE ON THE ART OF FOR,
GETTING.
To Remember Is Well, but the Power to
Forget Is the Greatest Gift to the
Human Race--"TheIr Sins and Their

BROOKLYN, N. Y, June s. 1S92.-The enor-
nous audience which thronged the Tabernacle
this morning had fresh evidence OF DR.. Tai
IMAGES originality. The value OF retentive
memory every one knew by experience and
had heard extoled from their schoOldays up,
but they learned from DR.. Talmage's sermon
that the art Of forgetting is worth cultivating,
and that there Is the highest possible example
for its exercise. His text was Heb. S:l2;
Their sins and their iniquiues will remem-
Der no more"
The national flower of the Egyptians
is the heliotrope, of the Assyrians is
the water lily, of the Hindoos is the
marigold, of the Chinese is the chrys-
anthemum. We have no national
flower, but there is hardly any flower
more suggestive to many of us than
the "forget-me-not." We all like to be
remembered, and one of our misfort-
unes is that there are so many things
we cannot remember Mnemomics, or
the art of assisting memory, is
an important art. 1t was first
suggested by Smonides of Cos five hun
dred years before Christ Persons who
had but little power to recall events,
or put facts and names and dates in
proper professions have, through this
art, had their memory reinforced to an
almost incredible extent. A good
memory is an invaluable possession.
BY all MEANS cultivate it. | had an
aged friend, who detained all night at
| - ,,,;.o,, bla 1arnf l., ,uo it;nrr for a ,.o =
train fast in the snow banks, enter
tanned group of some ten or fifteen
clergymen, likewise detained on their
way home from meeting of Presby-
terry, by, first, with a piece of chalk,
drawing out on the black and
sooty walls of the depot, the charac-
ters of Walter SCOTS "Marmion," and
then reciting from memory the whole
of that poem of some eighty pages in
fine print. My old friend through
great age lost his memory, and when
asked him if the story of the railroad
depot was true, he said II do not re-
member now, but it was just like me. y"
"Let me see," said he to me, "have
ever seen you before?" Yes l said
you were my guest last night and 1
was with you an hour ago" What an
awful contrast in that man between
, the greatest memory ever knew and
no memory at all.
But right along with this art Of recol-
lection, which l cannot too highly
eulogize, is one quite as important and
yet l never heard it applauded.
mean the art of forgetting. There is
splendid faculty in that direction
\ that we all need to cultivate. We
might, through that process, be ten
times happier and more useful than
we now are. We have been told that
forgetfulness is a weakness and ought
to be avoided by all possible means.
So far from weakness, my text
ascribes it to God. 1t is the very top
of Omnipotence that God is able to OBJ
literate part of his own memory. II
we repent of sin and rightly seek the
divine forgiveness, the record OF
the misbehavior is not only
crossed off the books, but God act
: ually lets it pass out of memory. "Theii
7 sins and their miquities will remem
( Der no more" To remember no more
r is to forget, and you cannot make any
4 thing else out of it. Gods power o.
} forgetting is so great that if two mer
= appeal to him, and the one man, after
, a life all right, gets the sins of hi
1 heart pardoned, and the other man
: after a life of aComination, gets par
4 doned, God remembers no more agains
, one than against the other. The en-
4 tire past of both the moralist, with hi
n imperfections, and the proiligate, will
o his debaucheries, is as much obliter
n ated in the one case as In the other
t Forgotten, forever and forever. "Thei
s sins and their iniquities will remem
Q Der no more"
Many years ago family, consistin
o of the husband and wife and littl
girl of two years, lived far out in
Z cabin on Western prairie. The hu'
o band took few cattle to market. BE
o fore he started his little child aske
~ him to buy for her doll, and he prom
J. ised. He could, after the sale of tn
70 cattle, purchase household necessities
q and certainly would not forget the do
u he had promised. In the village
> which he went he sold the cattle an
- obtained the groceries for h
~ household and the doll for his lit
u darling. He started home alon
d the dismal road at night-fal
* AS he went along on horsebacl
d a thunderstorm broke, and
y the most lonely part of the road and
o the heaviest part of the storm, he heal
IA a child cry Robbers had been know
u to do some bad work along that roa
and it was known that this herdsma
had money with him, the price of Il
cattle sold. The herdsman first thougl
it was n strategem to have him ha
II, and be despoiled of his treasures, b.
the child's cry became more keen al
rending, and so he dismounted al
felt around in the darkness and all
It, vain, until he thought of a hollow TIL
he remembered near the road whe
~ the child might be, and for that
started, and, sure enough, found
little one tagged out and drench
ar, Of the storm and almost dead.
wrapped 1t up as well as he could a
mounted his horse and resumed
Journey home. Coming in sight OF !
isS cabin, he saw it all lighted up, a