Malachi 3:16-17 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it… There is reason to believe that memory never loses anything, but that it retains, and may reproduce, when the right string is touched, every thought, impression, and event of our whole past lives. The well-ascertained phenomena of delirium, insanity, and other unusual forms of consciousness, furnish ample demonstration of this statement. In our usual state of mind, things do not indeed return to us uncalled, nor yet do they come at once when sought, but obey certain laws of suggestion or association, which retard the action of the memory, as the balance-wheel does the motions of a watch. But in certain conditions of consciousness, the balance-wheel is taken off, the usual laws of suggestion are suspended, the full flow of memory takes the place of the scanty jet of recollection, and the whole past rushes spontaneously upon the mind. But we need not go beyond our own familiar experience to verify this view. Revisit some scenes of early life, and what intensely vivid remembrances take shape, hue, and voice! The past never dies, though, in the common routine of life, we have to a degree the keys of memory in our own hands, and may admit or exclude recollections at pleasure. There are seasons, and those not rare, when, without the power of choice, we are liable to inundations from the good or evil, the sweet or bitter, of the past, promiscuously. In seasons of sorrow the past always utters its voices. When the hand of providence is heavy upon us, if the past has been stained with guilt, we need no inscription upon the wall to make our knees smite together and our souls tremble. There is nothing, more true to universal experience than the self-reproaching communings of Joseph's brethren when they felt themselves surrounded by imminent perils in a strange land. A vast amount of remorse mingles with human grief, and drugs to the utmost with gall and wormwood the cup of sorrow. But compare, with the sad retrospect which providence forces upon the guilty, the rich reminiscences which crowded Job's mind, when health, riches, and children were all taken from him. Most of all, death, as it is passing the book of memory over to the register of eternity, rehearses its records in the ear fast closing to the outward world. Is it within our power to lay up remembrances that will give peace and pleasure? It is not events, but our own traits of character and conduct alone, that are capable of giving us anguish in the remote retrospect. It is astonishing how smooth the roughest ways of providence look at a little distance. If shadows gather about our dying bed, they will be shadows of our negligencies, follies, and sins. But if our lives have been faithful, devout, and loving, then will the remembrance of what we were through the grace of God, and the testimony of a good conscience glancing to and fro through the years that are gone, give peace and triumph to our departing spirits, and enable us to feel that God is taking us to a rest for which He had first fitted us. A recent German writer, in a fictitious sketch, introduces a worthy youth as compiling a book of pleasant experiences to be read for his comfort at the hour of death. Such a book it concerns us all to write, not on paper, but on the surer and more lasting tablet of a memory that cannot die. Show the bearing this view of memory has on the doctrine of a future righteous retribution. St. John says: I saw the dead, both small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened," etc. Out of what books can they be thus judged, except those of memory, — books written by themselves, but preserved by God, and opened at the solemn hour of death for their acquittal or condemnation? If the past is to be thus brought to light, may not memory be the prime minister of God's retributive justice, — the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched, in the sinner's soul, — the peace of God, that passeth understanding, to the pure and faithful spirit? Of the power of memory for good or evil, we have in this life ample experience from the torn and scattered leaves of its book, with which recollection furnishes us. Imagine the abandoned sinner full in the presence of his God, no sentence passed upon him but that which he is constrained to pass upon himself, no fire let loose upon him, but that which memory can kindle. Memory isolates him, makes him both afraid and ashamed to trust either God or man, bids him dread the frown of the Almighty, and shrink from the scorn of his brethren. Pass to the right hand of the Judge. Contemplate a truly humble, devout, exemplary Christian, with the holy thoughts and good deeds of a life of piety spread out before him, not veiled, as they were on earth, by the self-abasement of a lowly spirit, but sparkling in heaven's pure sunlight, seen of angels, owned by the benignant Redeemer, approved by God the Judge of all. Moreover, as his earthly life is thus reviewed in heaven, he sees not only each act itself, but its happy, glorious, perhaps still widening and brightening results. Did he sow a seed of humble charity? He sees not the seed, but the tree which has sprung from it. Did he cast his bread upon the waters? He sees not the bread, but the hungering souls whom it has nourished. Did he labour, and pray, and live, for the salvation of souls? He sees not his efforts, but their fruits, going forth it may be, even for the healing of the nations. But it may be said, the best of men have been, to a greater or less degree, sinners; and if memory be perfect and entire, while the pious look back with pleasure on their good deeds, must not the remembrance of their folly and sin cloud their joy, and mingle strains of sadness with their songs of rapture? But surely to the awakened memory of the consistently virtuous, in the world to come, worthy and holy thoughts and deeds must so occupy the foreground, as to throw follies and sins completely into the shade. Then, too, against every disobedient purpose and act there will be written in the book of memory the cancelling vows of contrition that succeeded it, and the holy resolutions that forbade its repetition. The sins of the exemplary and devout will be to them in heaven as the sins of our infancy are to us now. If then a "book of remembrance" is kept, how vigilant the prospect of its pages being brought to light should make us — how prayerful against secret faults — how watchful against besetting sins! (A. P. Peabody.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. |
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