The age-herald., 1902-03-16
Dr. Taln1age's Sermon.


 "I did let you off Don't bother your self and bother me with any more of that discussion !" The following day 1 come in and say: My dear sir. about that debt-I can never get over the fact that I owe you that money. It is some thing that weighs on my mind like a millstone Do forgive me that debt" This time you clear lose your patience and say: You are a nuisance. What do you mean by this reiteratlon of that affair? I am almost sorry I forgave you that debt. Do you doubt my veracity or do you not understand the plain language in which 1 told you that debt was can celed?" We'll my friends. there are many Christians guilty of worse folly than that. While 1t is right that they repent of new sins and of recent sins. what is the use of bothering yourself and in- sulting God by asking him to forgive sins that long ago were forgiven? God has forgotten them. Why do you not for get them? No; you drag the load on with you, and 365 times a year, if you pray every day, you ask God to recall oc- currences which he has not only forgiven but forgotten.
 Quit this folly. I do not ask you less to realize the turptude of sin, but I ask you to higher faith in the promise of God and the full deliverance of his mercy. He does not give a receipt for part payment or so much received on account, but receipts in full, God hav- ing for Christs sake decreed your sins and your infquities will l remember no more" As far as possible let the dis agreeables of life drop. We have enough things in the present, and there will be enough in the future to disturb us with out running a special train into the great Goneby to fetch us as special freight things left behind. Years ago when there was a great railroad strike I remember seeing all along the route from Omaha to Chicago and from Chicago to New York hundreds and thousands of freight cars switched on the sidetracks. those cars loaded with all kinds of perishable material, decaying and wasting. After the strike was over did the railroad compan- ies bring all that perished material down to the markets? No; they threw 1t off where 1t was destroyed and loaded up with something else. Let the long train of your thoughts throw off the worse than useless freight of a corrupt and destroyed past and load up. with grati- tude 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 Heaven ly Fatner mas not 1onunesS TOT mysteries.
 Allow Others to Forget.
 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 scoundrels they once were They not only will not for get their forgiven deficits, but they seem to be determined that the church and the world shall not forget them. If you want to declare that you have been the chief of sinners and extol the grace that could save such a wretch as you were, do so, but do not go into particulars. Do not tell how many times you got drunk or to what bad places you went or how many free rides you had in the prison van before you were converted. Lump it, brother; give 1t to us in bulk If you have any scars got in honorable warfare, show them, but If you have scars got in ignoble warfare do not dis play them. I know you will quote the Bible reference to the horrible pit from which you were digged Yes, be thank full for that rescue, but do not make displays of the mud of that horrible pit or splash it over other people. Some times I have felt in Christian meetings dscomfited and unfit for Christian serv- ice because I had done none of those things which seemed to be, in the esti- nation of many, necessary for Christian usefulness, for 1 never swore word ever got drunk or went to compro- missing places or was guilty of assault and battery or ever uttered a slanderous word or ever did any one a hurt, all though I knew myS heart was sinful enough, and I said to my self, There Is no use of my trying to do any good. for I never went through those depraved experiences" But afterward I saw con- solation in the thought that no one gain ed any ordination by the laying on of the hands of dissoluteness and infamy.
 And though an ordinary moral life, end ing in a 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 out ward abominations. It may be appropriate in a meeting of reformed drunkards or reformed debauchees to quote for those not reformed how desperate and nasty you once were, but do not drive a scav- enger's cart into assemblages of people the most of whom have always been de- cent and respectable But have been sometimes in great evangelical meetings where people went into particulars about the sins that they once committed so much so that I felt like putting my hand on my pocketbook or calling fol the po- lice lest these reformed men might fall from grace and go at their old business of theft or drunkness of cutthroatery. If your sins have been forgiven and your life purified. forget the waywardness of the past, and allow others to forget it.
 A Sin Forgetting God.
 But what I 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 because the sun will never again rise upon our earth, the earth itself being flung into fiery demoltion-supposing that on that last day a group of internal spirits should somehow get near enough the gate of heaven and challenge our entrance and say: How canst thou. the just Lord, let those souls into the realm of supernal gladness? Why they said great many things they never ought to have said, and they did a 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 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 pleaded that sacrifice; they took the full pardon that I promised to all who, through my Son, earnestly ap-