The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1902-03-13

as special freight things left behind
Let the train of your thoughts throw
off the worse than useless freight of
corrupt and destroyed past and load
up with gratitude and faith and holy
determination. We do not please God
by the cultivation of the miserable.
He would rather see us happy than to
see us depressed. You would rather see
your children laugh than to see them
cry, and your Heavenly Father has no
fondness for Mysteries.
Not only forget your pardoned trans
gressions, but allow others to forget
them. The chief stock on hand Of
some people is to recount in prayer
meetings and pulpits what big scoun-
drels they once were. They not only
will not forget their forgiven deficits,
but they seem to be determined that
the church and the world shall not for
get them. If you want to declare that
you have been the chief of sinners and
extol the grace that could save such
wretch as you were, do so, but do not
go into particulars. If you have any
scars got in honorable warfare, show
them, but il you have scars got in igno
BILE warfare do not display them.
know You will quote the Bible rerer-
ence to the horrible pit from which
you were digged. Yes, be thankful for
that rescue, but do not make displays
of the mud of that horrible pit or
splash it over other people. Some
times have felt in Christian meetings
discounted and unfit for Christian
service because I had done none of
those things which seemed to be, in
the estimation of many, necessary for
Christian usefulness, for 1 never swore
word or ever got drunk or went to
compromising places or was guilty of
assault and battery or ever uttered a
| slanderous word or ever did any one
hurt, although l knew my heart was
sinful enough, and l said to myself,
There is no use of my trying to do
any good. for l never went through
those depraved experiences" But
afterward l saw consolation in the
thought that no one gained any ordi-
nation by the laying on of the hands
of dissoluteness and infamy.
And though an ordinary moral life.
ending in Christian life, may not be
as dramatic story to tell about, let us
be grateful to God rather than worry
about it if we have never plunged into
outward denominations. 1t may be ap-
propriate in a meeting of reformed
drunkards or reformed debauchees to
quote for those not reformed how des-
perate and nasty you once were, but do
not drive scavenger's cart into as
semblages of people the most of whom
have always been decent and respect
able. But l have been sometimes in
great evangelical meetings where peo-
pie went into particulars about the sins
that they once committed, so much SO
that felt like putting my hand on my
pocketbook or calling for the police
lest these reformed men might fall
from grace and go at their old business
of theft or drunkenness or cut-throat-
cry. If your sins have been forgiven
and your life purified, forget the way
wardness of the past and allow others
to forget it.
But what l most want in the light of
this text to impress is that we have a
sin-forgetting God. Suppose that on
the last day-called the last day be-
cause the sun will never again rise up
on our earth. the earth itself being
flung into fiery demolition-supposing
that on that last day a group Of in
fernal spirits should somehow get near
enough the gate of heaven and chal-
lenge our entrance and say: How
canst thou, the just Lord, let those
souls into the realm of supernal glad
ness? Why, they said great many
things they never ought to have said
and they did great many things they
ought never to have done. Sinners
are they-sinners all"
And suppose God should deign to an
swer. He might say: Yes, but did not
nv only Son die for their ransom? Did
he not pay the price? Not one drop of
blood was retained in his arteries:
not one nerve Of his that was not
wrung in the torture. He took in his
own body and soul all the suffering
that those sinners deserve. They plead
eu that sacrifice; they took the full
pardon that l promised to all who
through my Son, earnestly applied for
it, and it passed out of my mind that
they were offenders. forgot all tbout
it. Yes. l forgot all about it. Their
sins and their iniquities do l remem-
Der no more" A sin-forgetting God!
That is clear beyond and far above a
sin-pardcning God. How often we
hear it said, Il can forgive, but 1 can
not forget" That is equal to saying,
81 verbally admit it is all right, but l
will keep the old grudge good" There
is something in the demeanor that
seems to say: Il would not do you
harm. Indeed 1 wish you well, but
that unfortunate affair can never pass
out of my mind" There may no hard
words pass between them. but until
death breaks in the same GOODNESS re-
mains. But God let's our pardoned Of