Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-06-16

Vain Regret Is
Darkest Misery
BY Rev.JoHN WATSON
Qnn Maclaren).
A,,.hor Of 1.-THE bonnie Bricr Bush. Etc.
OoH TIaCIdItNV' =
Author of 1.-THE bonnie Brier Bush" ETC.

OME neonle r bar ridden by the future-tho things that
are going to happen. Other people are bag ridden by me
past-the things which have happened. 1t is common to
demonstrate with people about vain anxiety but little IS sad
about vain regret. Yet the darkest misery of life is remorse
for the things which have been AND WHICH CANNOT De
CHANGED. The most threatening future is not SO dark as the IRE
vokable past. How many ever are revHltlng the scene 0 some pef,
sonal tragedy? How many make their home among the tombs OF dead
years? "If only had done this" or "If I only had done that" so
they lament, and, exies from peace, they hang their harps on the vii
lows in a strange country.
Perhaps if one got to the root of 1T such persons rather pride them
selves on this state of mind, identifying it with religious repentance
and the excellent virtue of HUMILITY. Does it not show that they
are sensitive in the right place and are entirely cleansed from sell
Righteousness? Would not the opposite mood prove callousness and
shallowness? And certainly there is a wisdom in remembering that
we may profit by past blunders and may not repeat past sins. Is there
not also a duty of forgetting, that we may not be discouraged and dis
abed all our days2 If there be such a thing as a scared conscience
there is also such a thing as A MORBID CONSCIENCE.
Here is a man who ten years ago stood at the dividingo of the roads
and had to make a critical decision. He took the wrong way so FAR
as profit was concerned, and he would have been richer today if he had
taken the other. 1t was a difficult situation, and any man with the
utmost care and the best advice may make a mistake! He cannot re-
trace his steps now, for his course is fixed. His obvious wisdom is to
go straight forward with the work he has to do AND TO DO IT
WITH ALL HIS MIGHT. Asi it is, he is ever travelling back on a
weary pilgrimage to the crossroads, and if he can get any friend to go
with him and hear him charging on the Knight have been" he is al
most happy till his friends have grown weary of the ancient history
and at the first hint of it will hastily change the conversation or escape
from his company. m44 f
Another friend has the doubtful fortune of being a misanthrope
"by Inheritance" and so that mysterious gloom is ever settling down
upon him. According to his own account, he las never one a redHa
bic piece of work in his life, though, by the way, a number of people
have been hugely pleased with a good deal which he has said and writ
ten. This affords him not the slightest consolation, for he receives en-
enlargement with a sickly smile which he offers not as a tribute to the
speakers insight, but a recognition of the speakers courtesy. It is
good to say such pleasant things, but HE KNOWS BETTER what
is the value of his work. He is the only man who can tell how well
the work should have been done and how badly it has been done;
WHAT A FRAUD HE is and what a useless life he has lived.
Can a man not turn his back upon his past and begin again WITH
SELF RESPECT and the respect Of his fellow men? Society by a
sound instinct requires a man to prove his repentance by his works.
Society also by a sound instinct if he is repentant refuses to take up the
past and fling it in his face.
WHY SHOULD A MAN NOT HUM6LY BUT BOLDLY FORGIVE
HIMSELF IF HIS FELLOWS HAVE FORGIVEN HIM, AND MAY ONE
NOT ADD WITHOUT PREACHING, of THE ETERNAL HAS PROM
isED TO FORGIVE THE REPENTANT SINNER, WHY SHOULD THAT
SINNER BE MORE RIGHTEOUS OR MORE SEVERE THAN GoDr"