A SOURCE of mental weakness in the young which the most patient drill often fails to overcome; an infirmity in the aged that indicates coming decrepitude; an occasion of self-distrust to one's self and an annoyance to his friends; a fatal defect in an editor or an orator; a disabling disadvantage to a business man, a clerk, or a servant,—forgetfulness is justly dreaded by the wisest, as a type and threat of imbecility.
Notwithstanding the truth of all this, God has chosen this thing, so weak as to border on foolishness, dignified it as a Christian virtue, and elected it as a means of grace! From an involuntary and hazardous trip of the intellect, forgetfulness may be disfigured into a voluntary and to-be-coveted excellence of the heart. It may be so employed as to purify personal character, and therefore put one in a position to be of greater benefit to the world. The motto chosen from Philippians 3: 13, is the divine warrant for such a use,—
"Forgetting the things that are behind."
Paul's determination was wise. To renounce error or evil is not enough. To "leave all" that once attracted and engrossed us in order to follow Christ, as did Levi, is not the highest attainment. Some old practices, habits once regarded, it may be, as innocent need not only to be abandoned and counted as things never more to be done, but they are to be erased, sponged out of the soul itself, if it would rise unweighted and unstained to its privileges in Christ.
It is dangerous for a Christian to cherish the memory of an injury which he has forgiven—to dwell upon an act of injustice toward himself unconfessed and unrepented of. The presence and the necessary growth of such recollections unconsciously affect the disposition, and in many cases set the man upon some verbal defense or justification of his feelings. By this process the evil grows in influence, the heart is crowded and trammeled by it, and one finds himself as much a slave to an old grudge as another is to the tobacco or liquor habit.
By the interposing grace of the Holy Spirit every moral faculty may be trained and every wrong disposition corrected. Forgetfulness is as possible as forgiveness to one who has a "Get-thee-behind-me-Satan" for evil suggestions, and so complete an abhorrence for his unsanctified nature as Paul expresses. In this sense the very weaknesses of our minds that sometimes humiliate us, our losses and lapses of memory, may become sources of moral strength. Put away the miserable and corrupt things of the past, brother, upon that forgotten shelf of the memory, where they may wisely replace some precious things you need to take down for daily use.