"Then beware lest thou forget." How much depends on remembering the right thing at the right time! A certain sister said once: "If I could always be as good as I am during a protracted meeting and a thunderstorm, I should certainly be saved." No doubt she would. But why so good at such times? Because then God and his word are being impressed upon the mind or brought vividly to remembrance. If we could remember so well always! But we forget--at the very time, too, when we most need to remember. "Thy word have I laid up in my heart; that I might not sin against thee." (Ps. 119:11.) Speaking of memory, E. E. Hale writes: "Mr. Ruskin goes so far as to say that all which we call genius for fine art is simply an admirable memory. He constantly recurs to this. Claude Lorraine and Turner paint the sky well, for they well remember what they have seen. . . . Here is the supreme reason (for training the memory) that one [225] must keep ready at every instant of trial the determinations made in moments of reflection. Wordsworth defines the hero as he

The little child untrained comes to his mother in grief because he has done wrong, and makes probably the true excuse as he sobs out that he did not remember. Charlotte Bronte refers to this necessity where she, describes her heroine's conquest of immediate temptation. 'Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as this when body and soul rise up in meeting against their rigor. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?'"

      So all-important is it to remember. "These words, which I command thee this day," said God to his ancient people, "shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house, and upon thy gates." (Deut. 6:6-9.) And to us: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly;" and, "This do in remembrance of me;" for as often as ye do this, "ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come." Lest we forget, lest we forget!

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