The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-06-22
FORGET-ME-NOT.
Talmage Wants It Adopted a. the
National Flower.
Things We should Become Oblivious or
as God DECISIVE should Forget Our
Infelicities and Misdeineanors-
Rev. DIR. Talmage's Sermon.

LII. ldlmapc toOk ior MS teAI iaSt
Sunday Heb. viii, 70: "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-
tive to many of us than the "forget-me-
not" We all like to be remembered,
and one of our misfortunes is that there
are so many things we can not remem-
Der Mnemonics, or the art of assist
ing memory, is an important art. 1t
was first suggested by Simonides Of Cos,
500 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 re-
inforced to an almost incredible extent.
A good memory is an invaluable posses
sion. By all means cultivate it. had
an aged friend, who detained all night
dU LllSCIdUiC uVpoe III waning AoA ~
rail-train fast in the snowbanks, enter
tanned group of some ten or fifteen
clergymen, likewise detained on their
way home from meeting of presby-
terry, by, first, with piece Of chalk,
drawing out on the black and sooty
walls of the depot the characters 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 l 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 be-
fore?" "Yes," l 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.
But right along with this art of recol-
lection, which ] can not too highly
eulogize, is one quite as important, and
yet never heard it applauded. mean
the art of forgetting. There Is a
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 forgetful-
ness is 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 Omnipotence that
God is able to obliterate q part of his
own memory. If we repent of sin and
seek the Divine forgiveness, the record
of the misbehavior is not only crossed
off the books, but God actually let's it
pass out of memory. Their sins and
their iniquities will 1 remember no
more" To remember no more is to
forget, and you can not make anything
else out of. it. Gods power of for
getting is so great that if two men APP
peal to Him, and the one man, after a
life 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-
tons, and the profigate, 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,
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 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 scrap book, for they cut these
precious paragraphs out of newspa-
pers or books and at leisure times
look them over, or they may have
them tied up in bundles, or thrust in
pigeon holes, and they frequently re-
gale themselves and their friends by an
inspection of these filings, these
sarcasms, these falsehoods, these cru
elites. / have known gentlemen who
carried them in their pocket-books, sc
that they could easily get at these irri
tations, and they put their right hand
in the inside of the coat pocket over
'heir heart, and say: Look here! Let
me show you something" Scientists
catch wasps and hornets and poisonous
insects and transix them in curiosity
bureaus for study, and that is well
But these of whom l speak catch
the wasps and the hornets and
poisonous insects and play with then
and put them on themselves and OF
their friends and see how far the nox
ious things can jump and show how
deep they can sting. Have no sucf
scrap book. Keep nothing in your pos
session that Is disagreeable. Tear NJ
the falsehoods and the ISLANDERS and tn,
hypercriticisms. Initiate the Lord il
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 and in the churcl
and out of the church dispositions acerb
malign, cynical, pessimistic. Do yo'
know how these men and women go
that disposition? 1t was by the embalm
ment of things pantherine and viperous
They have spent much of their time il
calling the roll of all the rats that hav'
nibbled at their reputation. Their sou
is a cage of vultures. Everything il
them is sour embittered. The milk o