Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-06-06
TITS GOOD TO FORGET,
DR.. TALMAeE oIScoURsES ON RIGHT.
EOUs LAPSES OF MEMORY.


BROOKLYN, June 5.-The enormous audi
ence which thrDnged the Tabernacle this
morning had fresh evidence of DIR. Tai
IMAGES originality. The value of a retent-
tive memory every one knew by experience
and had heard extolled from their school
days up, but they learned from DIR. Tai
mage's sermon that the art of forgetting
is worth cultivating, and that there is the
highest possible example for its exercise.
His text was Hebrews viii, IL, "Their sins
and their iniquities will I remember 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 chrysanthemum We
have no national flower, but there is hardly
any flower more suggestive to many of
us than the forgetmenot. We all like to
be remembered and one Of our misfortunes
is that there are so many things we cannot
remember. Mnemonics or the art of as
sisting memory, is an important art. 1t
was first suggested by Simonides Of Cos
five hundred years before Christ.
Persons who had but little power to re-
call events, or put facts and names and
dates in proper professions, have through
this art had their memory re-enforced to
an almost incredible extent. A good
memory Is an invaluable possession. BY
all means cultivate it. | had an aged
friend who, detained MI night at a miser-
able depot in waiting for "A rail train fast
In the snowbanks, entertained n group of
some ten or fifteen clergymen likewise de-
tanned on their way home from n meeting
of presbytery, first, with piece of
chalk, drawing out on the black and sooty
walls of the depot the characters of Wal
ter Scott's "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 this
story of the railroad depot was true, he
said, 81 do not remember now, but it was
just like me-" LET me scc," said he to
me, "have ever seen you bcfore?" yes"
said, "you were my guest last night and
was with you an hour ago" What an
awful contrast in that man between the
greatest memory ever knew and no mem
DRY at all
A SPLENDID FACULTY.
But right along with this art of recOllec-
ton, which cannot too highly culogize, is
one quite as important, and yet | never
getting. 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 forget
fulness is n weakness and ought to be
avoided by all possible means So far from
weakness, my text ascribcs it to God. 1t
is the very top of or,Aipotcnce that God is
able to obiteratc part of his own mem
DRY. If we repent of sin and rightly seek
the divine forgiveness, the record of the
misbehavior is not only crossed off the
books, but God actually lets it pass out of
memory.
"Their sins and their iniquities will re
member no more" TO remember no more
il to forget, and you cannot make anything
else out of 1t. Gods power of forgetting is
so great that II two men appeal to him, and
tho ono man, after life all right gets the
sins of his heart pardoned, and the Other
man, after life of abomination gets par
doned, God remembers no more against
one than against the other. The entire
past of both the moralst, with his imper
fections, and the proiligate, with his de-
baucheries, Is as much obllterated in the
one case rs in the other Forgotten, for
ever and forever. "Their sins and their
iniquities will | remember no more"
This sublime attribute of forgetfulness
on the part OF God you and | need, in our
finite way, to initiate You will do well
to cast out Of your recollection all wrongs
done you. During the course of ones life
he Is sure to be misrepresented, to be lied
about, to be injured. There are those who
keep these things fresh by frequent re-
hearsal. If things have appeared in print
they keep them in their scrapbook, for
they cut these precious paragraphs ont of
newspapers or books, and at leisure times
look them over, or they have them tied up
In bundles, or thrust in pigeonholes, and
they frequently rcgale themselves and
their friends by an inspection of these
filings, these sarcasms, these falsehOods
these crueltics.
l have known gentlemen who carried
them in their pocketbooks, so that they
could easily get al these irritations, and they
put their right hand in the inside of the
coat pocket over their heart and say: Look
herei Let me show you something" Sci
entists catch wasps and hornets and poi
sonous insects and transilX them in Curios-
ity bureaus for study, and that is WELL
But these of whom speak catch the wasps
and the hornets, and poisonous insects, and
play with them, and put them on them
selves and on their friends, and see how
far the noxious things can jump, and show
how deep they can sting, Have no such
scrapbook. Keep nothing in your posses
sion that is disagrccabIo. Tear up the
falsehoods, and the ISLANDERS, and the hyper
criticisms.
Initiate the Lord in my text and forget
actually forget, sublimcy forget. There
Is no happiness for you in any other plan
or procedure. You see all around you, in
the church and out of the church, DISPOSE
tions acerb, malign, cynical, pcssimistic
Do you know how these men and women
got that dispositionp 1t was by the EN-
balmment of things pantherine and viper
GUS They have spent much of their time
in calling the roll Of all the rats that have
nibbled Mt their reputation. Their soul is
q cage of vulturos. Everything in them is
sour or imbttered. The milk of human
kindness has been curdlcd. They do not
believe in anybody or anything. If they
see two people whispering, they think it is
about themselves If they see two people
laughing. they think 1t is about them
selves.
Where there ia one sweet pippin in their
orchard, there are fifty crab apples They
have never been able to forget. They do
not want TO forget. They never will for
get. Their Indebtedness is supreme, for
no one can be happy if he carries perpetu-
ally In mind the mean things that have
been done him. On the other hand, you
can find here and there man or woman
(for there are not many of theml whose
disposition Is genial and summary. WhyY
Have they always been treated wellP on,
no. Hard things have been said against
them. They have been charged with Off