Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-06-06
ART OF FORGETTING.
Or. TALMAeE SHOWS THAT FOR
cETFULNESS HAS ITS USES.

BROOKLYN, June 5.--The enormous
audience which thronged the Tabernacle
this morning had fresh evidence Of Or.
Talmage's originality. The value Of a
retentive memory every one knew by
experience and had heard extolled from
their school days up, but they learned
from DR.. Talmage's sermon that the art
Of forgetting is worth crltivating, and
that there is the highest possible ex-
ample for its exercise. IIis text was
Hebrews viii, 10, "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 mari
gold. Of the Chinese is the chrysanthe-
num- We have no national flower, but
there is hardly any flower more sugges-
live to many of us than the forgetme-
not. We all like to be remembered,
and one Of our misfortuncs is that there
are so many things we cannot remem-
Der. Mnemonics, or the art of assisting
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
recall events, or put facts and names
aud dates in proper professions have,
through this art, had their memory re-
enforced to an almost incredible extent.
a good momory is an invaluable posses
sion BY all means cultivate 1t. had
an aged friend who, detained all night
Mt miserable depot in waiting for a
rail train fast in the snow banks, enter
tained group of some ten or fifteen
clergymen, likewise detained on their
way home from a meeting of pres.
bytery, first, with a piece Of chalk,
9rawipg out on the black and sooty
walls of the depot the characters of
Walter SCOTS "Marmion," and then re-
citing 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, shave ever seen you beforep'
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 memory at all.
CULTIVATE FoRGETFULNEss.
But right along with this art of recol-
lection, which cannot too highly eulo-
gize, is one quite as important and yet I
never heard it applauded. mean the.
~ 10,
faculty in that direction that we all
need to cultivate. We might, through
that process, be ten times happier and
moro useful than we now are. We have
been told that forgetfulness is weak
ness and ought to be avoided by all pos
sible means. So far from weakness, my
text ascribes it to God. 1t is the very
top of omnipotence that God is able to
Dbliterate part of his own memory. II
we repent of sin and rightly seek the
divine forgiveness, the record of the mis-
behavior is not only crossed off the
books, but God actually lets it pass out
Of memory.
"Their sins and their iniquities will /
remember 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 a
l:fe all right, gets the sins of his heart
pardoned, and the other man, after a
life of abomination, gets pardoned, God
remembers no more against one than
against the other The entire past Of
both the moralist, with his imperfec-
tions, and the profligate, with his de-
baucheries, is as much obliterated in
the one case as in the other Forgotten,
forever and forever. "Their sins and
their iniquities will l remember no
more"
This sublime attribute of forgetful-
ness on the part of God you and need
n our finite way to initiate. You via
10 well to cast out Of your recollection
III wrongs done you. During the course
81 ones life he is sure to be misrepre-
sented, TO be lied about, TO be injured.
There are those who keep these things
fresh by frequent rehearsal, If things
have appeared in print they keep them
in their scrapbook, for they cut these
precious paragraphs out Of newspapers
Dr books and at leisure times look them
Dver, or they have them tied up in bun
dies or thrust in pigeonholes, and they
frequently regale themselves and their
friends by an inspection of these fiings,
these sarcasms, these falsehoods, these
pFuelties.
have know gentlemen who carried
them in their pocketbooks, so that they
could easily get at these irritations, and
they put their right hand in the inside Of
lhe coat pocket over the heart and say:
HLoolS herel Let me show you some
thing" Scientists catch wasps and hor-
nets and poisonous insects and transfix
hem in curiosity bureaus for study, and
that Is well. But these of whom l
speak catch the wasps, and the hornets,
and the poisonous insects and play with
Them and put them ON themselves and
Dn their friends, and see how far the
noxious insects can jump and show how
deep they can sting. Have no such
lcrapbook. Keep nothing in your pos
session that is disagreeable. Tear mp
tho falsehoods, and the ISLANDERS, aud
the hypercriticisms
Initiate the Lord Ia my text and for
get. actually forget, sublimely forget.
There Is no happiness for you in any
0fhor plan or procedure. You see all
around you. In the church and out of the
church, dispositions acerb, malign, cyn-
lcal, peasimistic Do you know how
these men and women got that disposi-
honi Il was by the embalmment Of