Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1892-06-09
IT'S GOOD TO FORGET.
DR TALMAGE DlscouRsES ON RIGHT
EoUS LAPSES OF MEMORY.

BROOKLYN, June 5.-The enormous audi
snce which thronged the Tabernacle this
morning had fresh evidence of DR. Tai
mage's originality The value of retent-
tive memory every one knew by experience
and had heard extolled from their school
days up, but they learned from DIR. Tai
IMAGES 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, II, Their sins
and their iniquities will | 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 misfortuncs
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
Eve 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 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 miser-
able depot in waiting for rail train fast
in the snowbanks, entertained group Of
some ten or fifteen clergymen likewise de-
tanned on their way home from meeting
of presbytery, first, with a piece of
chalk, drawing out ON the black and sooty
walls of the depot the characters of Wal
ter Scott's "Marmion,p 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 see" said he TO
me, "have | ever seen you before~ '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
SPLENDID FACULTY.
But right along with this art of recollec.
ton, which cannot too highly eulogize, is
one quite as important, and yet | never
heard il applauded. mean the art of for
getting There is a splendid faculty in
We might through that process be ten
times happier and more useful than we
now are. We have been told that forget
fitness is 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 obliterate "A part of his own mem
ory 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
is to forget, and you cannot make anything
else out of it, Gods power OF forgetting is
so great that if two men appeal to him, and
the one man, after life all right gets the
sins of his heart pardoned, and the other
man, after life of abomnation gets par
doned, God remembers no more against
one than against the other The entire
past of both the moralist, with his imper
fections. and the prohigate, with his de
baucheries is as much obliterated in the
one case as in the other. Forgotten, for
ever and forever. "Their sins and their
iniquities will remember no more
This sublime attribute of forgetfulness
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 fittings have appeared in print,
they keep them in their scrapbook, for
they cut these precious paragraphs out 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 regale themselves and
their friends by an inspection of these
filings, these sarcasms. these falsehoods,
these cruelties.
| 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
herel Let me show you something" Sci
entists catch wasps and hornets and poi
sonous insects and transfix them in curios-
ity bureaus for study, and that IS well.
But these Of whorl speak catch the wasns,
and the hornets and poisonous insects, and
play with them, and put them on them
selves and On their friends and see how
fa. the noxious things can jump, and show
scrapbook. Keep nothing in your posses
sion that is disagreeable. Tear up the
falsehoods, and the ISLANDERS. and the hyper
criticisms.
Initiate the Lord in my text and forget.
actually forget, sublimely 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
tons acerl, malign. cynical, pessimistic
Do you know how these men and women
get that dispositions It was by the EN-
hamment Of things pantherine and viper
Gus. They have spent much OF Their time
in callino, the roll of all the rats that have
nibbled at their reputation. Their soul IS
4 cage Of vultures. Everything in them is
soar or i.nbttered. The milk Of human
kindness mas been curdled They do not
believe in anybody or anything If they
see two people whispering, they think 1t IS