The Duty of Forgetting

They are poor Who have lost nothing j they are poorer far Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor Of all who lose and wish they might forget. For life is one, and in its warp and woof There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet Where there are sombre colors. It is true That we have wept. But, oh! this thread of gold, We would not have it tarnish; let us turn Oft and look back upon the wondrous web, And when it shineth sometimes, we shall know That memory is possession.

Jean Ingelow.

It is a great thing to learn to live in the future. St. Paul put the lesson in very plain words when he said: “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.” To get the full force of these words, it must be remembered that they were written when St. Paul was an old man. It is no unusual thing for the young to look forward.

The world is all before them. They have onlystepped on the edge of life, and there lies before them an unopened, untraversed future, full of bright, beautiful visions and brilliant hopes. It draws them forward by its thousand golden possibilities of attainment, achievement, success. It is full of sweet-voiced birds of prophecy. Youth has no past, nothing to leave behind; all its treasures are on before. It is natural, therefore, for the young to look forward and press onward.

But ordinarily it is not so with the old. As the years advance, they look back more and more. The future’ has less and less to draw them on. The past is their treasure-house. It holds the best things of their life, — their best work, their sweetest joys, their tenderest friendships. They have little more to win. In the short path before them there are but few flowers which they can hope to pluck. There is but little room for new achievement. They can make no new friendships. It is natural for the old to look backward, to live in memory, not in hope.

But here we see an old man who lives wholly in the future. He was a prisoner. He was broken by much suffering and hardship. It certainly was not a bright earthly outlook that

285 he had from his dungeon grating. Would you not say, looking at him, that the best, the brightest, the grandest part of his career was behind him? What could there be in the future for that weary, broken old man? What new lands could he hope to explore? What new achievements could he expect yet to make?

Yet here he stands, amid his life’s evening shadows, and declares that his sublimest work lies yet before him, that he has not yet attained his life’s goal, that his best has not yet been reached. “I care nothing for anything in my past,” he says; “it does not satisfy me. It is not worth counting. Old and broken though I be, hemmed in, too, by these oppressive limitations, these walls, these chains, yet I am not at the end of my life; an unquenchable hope lives in my heart; and the star of my life shines far onward.”

So we see him there, in the thickening shadows of life’s evening-time, in the mists of gathering twilight, weary, worn, wearing chains, but still full of hope, still straining every energy, still reaching forward, still forgetting the past, still drawn irresistibly on toward some great aim, some glorious goal, that lies beyond, unseen by mortal eyes. At length night falls upon the vanishing form; it passes out of our

286 sight; we see the old man going at last to a martyr’s death. But his eyes are yet fixed on something bright and glorious beyond. In the last words we catch from his lips, he speaks of a crown laid up for him. The last glimpse of him we have, with white locks tossed by the wind, with eyes fixed steadily and intently upon the Beyond, he is still pressing on.

The secret was this — he had in his eyes a distinct and definite future — a future not bounded by death’s horizon, but running on into eternity. Immortality was real to him. No runner in a race ever saw goal or garland more vividly than this glorious, eagle-eyed man saw the end of his course, the goal of his life. Nor was it any earthly vision that drew him on; had it been, hope would have been dead in his heart in the broken years of his old age. He saw life sweeping on through death and beyond it, and so he looked forward to the future when he would reach his loftiest attainments. Nothing good, beautiful, true or real would end for him at the grave.

What were the things which were before that old apostle there in his prison? Nothing very bright, the man of the world would say, — a few days of chains and dungeon-life, then the ax, and then a grave. Cicero said:” An old

287 man has nothing indeed to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than a young man, since he has already attained what the other only hopes for.” To this heathen writer there was nothing before old age. But before the Christian old man there are far more blessed things than the best he has left behind him.

What are some of the things that are before us? The sinless purity into which our souls shall rise when they burst away from this which we call life; the endless growth and development of all our powers in the summer of God’s love; the wondrous career of sublime occupation which shall be ours when we reach our full redemption; the perfect beauty of the divine likeness which shall glow on our dull faces in the home of peace; the eternal blessedness of that rest which is “deep as summer midnight, yet full of life and force as summer sunshine” — the rest of God, into which we shall enter. The best of life is yet to be.

It is well worth our while to study the way in which St. Paul sought to reach the better things which he saw before him. It was by forgetting the things that were behind him. He was never satisfied with anything here as his final attainment. He found on earth no resting-place; his home ever lay onward and upward.

He lingered in no place, but ever sought a country. He cared little what to-day’s circumstances were — how hard, how bare, how painful, for to-morrow he would be gone. The blessed hope which filled his soul made him utterly indifferent to the discomforts of the present moment. He forgot the things which were behind him and reached forth to the things which were before.

Of course, there is a proper use to be made of our past. We should remember the lessons we have learned from past experience, so as to profit by our mistakes, and avoid repeating them. The true science of living is not to make no mistakes, — which is impossible, — but not to repeat the same mistakes a second time. We should remember past mercies and blessings. If we do, memory will shine down upon us like a clear sky, full of stars. Such remembering of the past will keep the gratitude ever fresh in our hearts and the incense of praise ever burning on the altar. Such a house of memory becomes a refuge to which we may flee in trouble. When sorrows gather thickly; when trials come on like the waves of the sea; when the sun goes down and every star is quenched, and there seems nothing left to us in all the present, then the memory of a t 289 past fall of goodness, a past in which God never once failed us, becomes a holy refuge for us, a refuge gemmed and lighted by the lamps of other and brighter days. Thus there are uses of the past which bring blessing. Memory has its holy office.

But there is a sense in which we should altogether forget our past. We should forget our past attainments. If any man who ever lived might have been satisfied with his life, St. Paul might have been with his. No other man ever got nearer to Christ than he did. No other ever more completely put the world under his feet. No other ever realized more of Christlikeness in character. No other ever did a greater work or left a more blessed, fragrant influence. Yet there was no elation, no feeling even of satisfaction with himself. His attainments all bore to his own eye marks of incompleteness. He never looked back to find comfort in good things he had done, but cherished always a sublime discontent with himself, and ever looked to what he was going to attain. The attained was ever dwarfed and impoverished to his eye by the splendors of the unattained. It was this divine unrest that made St. Paul a growing Christian to the day of his death. Nothing is so fatal to all Christian progress as

290 the feeling of satisfaction with one’s attainments. When a man sits down and says, “I am contented now; I have reached my goal. I am as good as I expect to be in this world. I never aspire to anything better than this work I have just finished,” from that moment he ceases to grow. He will strive no more and make no new achievement.

This is true in all life. The want of appetite is a mark of physical disease, and hunger is a token of health. The cessation of the desire to learn is a sign that intellectual growth has ended. So in spiritual life, hunger is a mark of health. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. Blessed are the unsatisfied. Blessed are they who long for more and more. All through the Bible we find in true believers a thirst for God, a deep, passionate yearning for closer, fuller, richer, more satisfying communion with God himself. The best thing in us never is what we are, what we have already reached, but our longing for that which is yet higher and better. The trouble with too many of us is that we are too well satisfied with ourselves. We have attained a little measure of peace, of holiness, of faith, of joy, of knowledge of Christ, and we are not hungering for the larger possible attainments.

Nothing could be sadder than this state, — no more longing, no more growth, no more hunger, no more feeding upon Christ, no more aspiration, no more reaching upward. With all the infinite possibilities of spiritual life before us we should not settle down on a patch of dustyground at the mountain’s foot in any restful content. Where is the immortal in us if we can be satisfied with the little we have learned of Christ, the little we have attained of likeness to him and communion with him? We should pray for spiritual discontent.

We should also forget past sorrows. Too many people live perpetually in the shadows of their past griefs and looses. They feel that love for the friends who are gone requires them to continue in sadness, and therefore they dwell year after year amid the memories of their griefs. Nothing could be more unwholesome. What would be thought of the man who should build a house for himself, with black stones, paint all the walls and apartments black, hang black curtains over the dark windows, put black carpet on every floor, festoon the chambers with crape, put only sad pictures on the walls, and gloomy books on the shelves, and who should have no flowers blooming about his doors or windows’ but flowers for funeral wreaths, no

292 trees but weeping-willows and cypresses? Yet there are people who really live in just this way. They make a home like this for their soul. They forget all the pleasant things, the joys, the mercies, the blessings, and remember only the sad, painful things. They keep the heart-wounds of years unhealed, continually tearing them open again. They cherish and nourish all their griefs.

That is not the Christian way to deal with sorrow. If we believe that our dead are in immortal blessedness with God, why do we so linger at the dark grave? They are not there, these departed ones; then why not turn our gaze toward heaven where they wait? We should remember the things which are before and forget the things which are behind. Do you grieve? God will never blame you for your grief, but he would have you pour it into the channels of beautiful, holy living. Let it make your heart more sympathetic, your voice gentler, your hand softer, and let it send you out to be a comforter of others, and never to cast the shadows of your grief on life’s sunny paths.

An officer leading a charge in battle, came to the dead body of his own boy, who had fallen in an advance line. His impulse was to stop,

293 to halt his men, to neglect his duty in the battle, and to weep over his beloved son. But it was the very crisis of the engagement. He was leading his men at one of the most important points in the field. He dare not pause for tears. He flung himself from his horse, knelt an instant beside the body of his boy, pressed a hot kiss upon the white lips, then rose quickly and led his men in the assault.

We must have our sorrows, and sometimes they are very sore. Our heart’s first impulse, in such experience, is to give up our work, to lose our place in the moving column of life’s march, and to linger uncomforted by our griefs. But we dare not do this. Duty always presses, bidding us forward. Others suffer if we linger. The living children need the mother’s love and care, and she must not stay a minute in neglect of them to weep beside her dead. The death of a father calls the mother away from tears, and ordains her to double duty and responsibility. Bereavement is always a call to new and sacred service.

Then God has so ordered, too, that in pressing on in duty we shall find the sweetest, richest comfort for ourselves. Sitting down to brood over our sorrows, the darkness deepens about us, and our little strength changes to

294 weakness. But if we turn away from the gloom, and take up the tasks and duties to which God calls us, the light will come again and we shall grow strong.

“When all our hopes are gone,
For others’ sake

‘Tis well our hands must still keep toiling on.

For strength to bear is found in duty done, And he is blest, indeed, who learns to make The joy of others cure his own heart-ache.”

We should forget also past mistakes and sins. Few problems in life are more important than the question — how to deal with our sins. It is a wonderful truth that in grace we can leave our sins behind us and go on to new life. Were there no cross with its atoning sacrifice, we could not do this. Our sins would cling to us forever and blot our skies with blackness that never could be washed white. But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sins. God himself forgets the sins he forgives, remembers them no more, forever leaves them behind, and he wants us to forget our forgiven sins, not to waste one hour in grief over them, but to pour the energy of our penitence into new life. By the power of the divine grace our sins and our falls may even be made to yield bless-

295 ing. Many of the best things in the old man’s life are the harvest of his penitences and repentings. Through the grace of Christ we may so deal with our sins as to extract blessing from their shame, sweetness from their bitterness, beauty from their loathsomeness. Our very falls may become new births to our souls, and we may leave them behind us, using them as stepping-stones to new and holier life.

“Noble souls, through dust and heat,
Rise from disaster and defeat

The stronger;
And conscious still of the divine
Within them, lie on earth supine
No longer.”

Thus true life looks ever forward. We may never rest. Our goal is before us. We must live loose to this world, never anchoring our barques for a long stay. Our best attainments must be but steps to higher attainments. To-day’s achievements must but inspire us for nobler achievements to-morrow. “Forward and not back” is the true motto for a Christian life. Even sorrows must not detain us, and we must take little time for farewells and for tears, so urgent is the life of duty and obedience which calls us on, and so glorious are the bless-

296 ings that wait before us. Even our sins must not cause us to falter, but we must hasten away from them, leaving the vales of defeat, to climb to the holy heights of victory. The best is ever onward and forward. We are not going toward death, but toward life. What we call dying is but trampling to fragments the hindering walls of mortality and pressing through into the full, unrestrained, boundless blessedness of life*.

Such a life as this is possible only in Christ. If we are not Christians, we cannot forget the things that are behind — for we have nothing before us that is beautiful and worthy. We cannot press forward to the things that are before, — what is there before us if we have not Christ, if our sins are not forgiven, if we have no home and treasure in heaven? How can we leave sorrow behind if no comforter comes with the blessed revealing of immortality? The realities of life are the unseen things which are ours in Christ. Heaven is always before us and heaven holds life’s best joys, attainments and treasures.