RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1289, 12 November 1896, Page 42

RELIGIOUS.

Our Lay Sermoij FOR Sunday Reading.

WHAT WE SHOULD FOEGET. "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching foith unto those things which are before."—Philippians, Hi., 13. It is just as much our duty to forget some things as it is to remember others. In forgetfulness alone can the soul find strength to do what the present demands and to endure what the future may have in store.

There are many things in a man's life which it is a great comfort to forget, which, indeed, he must forget if he is to " reach forth " with either comfort or encouragement, and which he ought to forget if he expects to do justice to his aspiration for better thoughts and deeds than his past life contains.

If a man, for example, has at some time or other yielded to temptation, has repented of his weakness and acquired resolution enough to fortify himself against a recurrence, he would be very foolish to keep that period of his life in his mind. The more he thinks of it the more injury he decs to his self respect, and wounded self respect is always a peril.

If, under a sudden impulse or from sheer foolhardiness, you choose to go through a bog instead of travelling on the hard upland, and if, after having accomplished this foolish feat, you recognise your folly and wash your soiled boots in the nearest spring, you need not constantly recall your escapade or waste your time in looking at the boots which yesterday were muddy. The experience was possibly useful in its way, but you will never go through it again. Put aside, therefore, the remembrance of it so far as you can, thank God you did not sink in the bog, and push forward with a light heart. When you repented God forgot your misdeed, and you can afford to do the same. There is no revenge in heaven, and though certain marks, indistinct tracings, may be left on the soul in consequence of evil doing, they are like the scar on the arm, a very slight disfigurement if the wound has properly healed.

1 do not say that penitence can entirely erase the consequences of grave misdeeds, for the laws of nature will have their way, and we may as well face that sternest fact in our human lives. But when a man sees that the course he has pursued has been an injury, determines to halt, to right about face and to march the other way, that attitude of mind reduces consequences to a minimum. When God does this, not by miracle, but by law, you may well forget the things that are behind in your eager desire to "reach forth" to the nobler life before you.

Some people have the bad habit of keeping everything disagreeable in mind, and the worse habit of forgetting what has been pleasant and delightful. If they could do just the contrary their lives would be sweeter and more productive of good. There are weeds in everybody's garden, and no garden was ever planted'in which weeds did not insolently present themselves. They come without invitation and without a welcome. If you recognise them as weeds, if you have sense enough to know that weeds choke flowers, and if, with a desire to cultivate and protect tho flowers, you pull the weeds up, roots and all, the beauty of ihe flowers ought to make you forgot that weeds ever grew there, even though they did grow through negligence on your part. Religion gives us a very practical view of this matter, St. Paul was wise when he told us to make life happier by forgetting some things, and what a beautiful world this would be if Ave could wholly forget the injuries we have received and remember only the kind things that have been done. How it hardens the heart and takes the sweetness out of life to dwell on the evil that has befallen us, either through our own folly or tho selfishness of others ! A sort of despair, or at least of indifference, settles on the soul when we look only at the under side of ourselves and of our neighbours. We ask ourselves what it is all worth when one friend has proved false, and that single falsity spoils our lives, just as a drop of ink will spoil a glass of water. We forget the water which will quench our thirst, and remember only the drop of ink, then mingle the two and spoil everything. In my judgment this i.-; a very serious matter and one that calls for our most careful attention. I have met men who thought the world was peopled with rogues because one debtor failed to meet his obligations or one friend betrayed their confidence. They do not generalise from the honesty which they have met in abundance, but from tho dishonesty which is exceptional. It would be just as fair to say that it thunders always because you have seen one flash of lightning.

And there are women who have wronged themselves by becoming querulous because of one or two sad experiences, and othurs who have walked in shadow because some dear one walks in the light of an immortal life. What is religion for if it does not make us see things as God sees them ? Vv r hy should we fix our eyes on one dark cloud when all the rest of the heavens is in the blaze of ? If you have had weeds in your gaiden and have pulled them up do not let your memory dwell on weeds. If you have not pulled them up, that is a very different affair, and the more soberly you think of weeds in a flower garden the better. If you have had sickness or death do not think of graves, but of the house not made with hands. God has been good, and you do well to remember it. If you have been false to yourself and are now faithful bury " the old man " and rejoice in " the new man." With heaven to look forward to,

with a kindly Providence and a host of angels to keep you lest you stumble, you should gratefully face the present and cheerfully look to the future.