THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF MEMORY.

"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee." — Deut. viii. 2.

The power to remember is quite as familiar to us as the power to touch or the power to see. Indeed, so familiar is it that we are apt to take it as a matter of course and scarcely realise how immensely indebted to it we are in all we do.

Memory is one of the most astonishing of our manifold endowments. It is that capacity which the mind possesses to treasure up what it has gone through, what it has felt and seen, and to keep it in reserve for future use. It is the capacity for retaining the information we acquire, the impressions we receive, and without it we could never grow in knowledge, nor derive any advantage from the sights and events we have witnessed. In short, were it not for memory, seizing hold of each hour’s and each year’s occurrences, and storing them away within, to be called forth again (more or less clearly) from time to time, we should continue in a state of intellectual babyhood to the end of our days.

Memory, then, preserves the past for us. It enables us to bind the past to the present, and thus to bring the light of the past to bear on the present and on the management of its affairs.

The possession of such a power involves necessarily a tremendous responsibility. In some cases the memory is specially susceptible. It registers events and impressions with great celerity and ease. In other cases, though the memory may not be so quickly receptive, its retentiveness of what it does receive may be extraordinary. In fact, many of those who have studied the science of the mind assure us that nothing which has once been taken into the memory can ever be altogether effaced, but is kept locked up in secret cells, and certain to emerge and spring into consciousness some time or other. Marvellous indeed, and often startling, are the revivals of long-past things which were deemed to be left for ever behind, dead and buried. A chance word, the sight of a face, a waft of music, the scent of a flower, may set in motion a train of associations, and suddenly, spontaneously, the long-buried thing of the past wakes up and leaps into life again, fresh and vivid.

Memory, however, does not always yield up its stores with such spontaneous readiness. There are times when it is only by an effort of will that the past can be recalled and made to live again. And it is to the putting forth of this effort that the text chosen from the old Hebrew Scripture urges. Yes; but what part of our past is it which it is most important to recall and to cherish in remembrance? That is the decisive point. That determines the value of memory to us, for the present and for the future. It is for what we deliberately try to recall and are most anxious to cherish in remembrance that we are responsible.

1. The Deepening op Reverence and Gratitude.

That being the case, then, it follows, first of all, that those recollections should be cherished that tend to deepen reverence and gratitude. This was the drift of the teacher of ancient Israel when he said, "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee." He desired the people to summon up the remembrance of what Jehovah had done for them, that they might be impressed with a sense of His greatness and feel the magnitude of their obligations to Him. And there are passages in the lives of all of us which, if recalled and dwelt upon, are fitted to produce a similar effect upon our mind. We have seen much of the divine dealings in the past that should strike us with wonder and awe in presence of the infinite majesty and power that gird us round on every hand. But we must rouse ourselves to consider what we have seen, to bring it back to thought again and again, in order that the wonder and awe may be stirred, and kept stirring, within us. That is how our reverence for the highest can alone be maintained, and it is our duty thus, by the exercise of memory, to endeavour to maintain it.

It is also the way to foster the spirit of gratitude. In a French school for deaf and ^ dumb boys, taught by the Abbé Sicard many years ago, one of the pupils was asked to state what he understood by the word "gratitude"; and immediately he wrote down, "Gratitude is the memory of the heart." A better answer could scarcely be given. For it is the willingness to remember the good received in days gone by, the help that came under dreary burdens, the glimpses of divine mercy that beamed out when the path was clouded, — it is the willingness to remember these things and ponder them seriously that warms and intensifies the grateful feeling. The past may have had its ruggedness and trial, its struggle and its gloom; and some may be disposed to brood darkly over such aspects of its sternness. But the past had its bounties and benefits, and its seasons of brightness too, and these should never be dropped out of sight as if they had not been. To forget the streaks of sunshine that so often softened the shadows, would be sheer unfaithfulness. And we are neither fair to God nor fair to ourselves if the sunnier side of our life is not held in remembrance.

2. The Teaching of Practical Wisdom.

In the second place, those recollections should be cherished that teach lessons of practical wisdom. It is through the aid of memory that many of the best elements of our education are acquired. In passing from one phase of our existence to another we meet with a variety of persons and circumstances, and we are moved by a variety of thoughts and feelings; and as memory gathers these together in its stores we can learn much for the right guidance of our conduct. We can draw hints and rules of action from what memory has preserved in its records- — from the good deeds we have ever done, the noble examples we have heard of, or the mistakes we have made, the difficulties we have encountered, and even the failures into which we have stumbled.

Thus it is that we gain benefit from the school of experience. If we consider the facts which memory can set in array before us, we get an insight into many questions which directly affect our happiness, — such questions, for instance, as, what are the real sources of satisfaction, and the objects most worth striving for? What are the dangers to be shunned, and the principles of conduct best calculated to secure the welfare of the soul and the peace of the conscience? With regard to these questions every person’s experience affords the means of gathering some definite instruction which memory can retain for use in the grave business of life.

And the point to be laid to heart is this, — that if the wise lessons of experience are ignored and the memory of them be muffled and stifled, there is a deplorable failure in responsibility. That person violates one of the most solemn of all obligations who pushes from him, or refuses to consider, what memory teaches. He does wrong to his own nature; he spoils the best possibilities of his life, he defeats the purpose of God in conferring such an endowment as memory upon him. For memory is designed to provide every man with lights of wisdom from the experiences he has undergone, so that at each new stage of his course he may see more clearly where the true good lies, and be enabled thereby to act and strive with more certainty of attaining it.

3. The Fostering of Higher Ideals.

Again, those recollections should be cherished which furnish ideals of loftier endeavour. Probably we have all had our times of generous enthusiasm, when we thought of the high line of action we should like to take, and we resolved, if spared, by and by to take it. At such times we caught a glimpse of the true direction in which our aspiration should be bent, the excellence of life and character we should aim to reach. Our hearts were warmed and uplifted, and we vowed to ourselves to play the worthy part which our generous moods suggested.

Do we try now to preserve our grasp on those higher resolutions? Do we find a freshening interest in calling them up and thinking over the circumstances that gave them birth, that we may be incited to greater devotedness in our present efforts? That is one of the functions for which the gift of memory was bestowed. It was meant as an aid in keeping hold of our best ideals, and in carrying them forward with us from day to day and year to year, that so their beauty might continue to inspire us, and that we might be impelled to work them out and translate them into reality.

Pitiful is the case of those who once had bright and noble ideals, and sincere resolutions to follow them, but have allowed those ideals to drop into oblivion, and are quite content to leave them unremembered. Such persons may prosper fairly well in many surface ways, yet they have lost the high stimulating purpose that would have led their life on to sterling worth and usefulness. And they have burdened themselves with a stupendous responsibility. For, to have once seen and felt a particular line of action to be right and high, and demanded by the conscience, is to be bound henceforth to strain as far as possible to follow it. And if it is not followed, if the very remembrance of the impulse to follow it is smothered, then the life must fall miserably short of that which God meant it to be.

Blessed are those who are anxious to retain their grip on the highest thoughts and the highest conceptions of good which have once flashed upon their vision, — who hold fast the most sacred resolutions of the past, to exalt their aims and shape their endeavours for the present Such persons press memory into the service of their spiritual sanctification.

4. The Strengthening of Courage and Faith.

Once more those recollections should be cherished which help to nurse moral courage and faith. Tennyson in "Locksley Hall," echoing the idea of an older poet, declared —

"That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

But Tennyson was in his youth when he penned that statement In after years, when he had seen and learned more of life, he discovered — as is shown in "In Memoriam" — that sorrow can be relieved, and relieved amazingly, by the remembrance of happier things. Bruised hearts without number have found solace and strength unspeakable in casting the thoughts away back to sunny spots in the past on which it is soothing to dwell. The Land of Memory may be shadowed here and there by heavy regrets; but it has its pleasant places also, not a few, lit up by the radiance of kindly providences and countless mercies, that gladdened and blessed; and to let the mind wander amongst these is to enjoy a refuge from pressing vexations and griefs. Often, indeed, in hours of despondency and wasting care, men and women obtain a wondrous comfort in taking a stroll in thought through the country of w Auld Lang Syne." It gives them a respite from their troubled feelings to be thus transported to the happy scenes and genial delights of brighter days they once knew.

And it does more; it braces the soul to confidence too. For the restrospect of past blessings supplies ground for the assurance that the same goodness which bestowed those blessings, rules and reigns still, and that the coming days may be bright with mercies as former days have been. And that assurance is confirmed when the love of the cross is brought into view, and when the pathway of life is looked at in the glow of hope it sheds. Then courage revives — courage, and a firmer faith. In the light of the cross and its burning love, it becomes refreshingly clear that the gifts of divine goodness are never exhausted, and that the heart of the Father, which the cross reveals, has more kindness yet to show as the years roll by.

It is vital to our happiness and to all that is most precious for us in life that we cherish the remembrances of the past which strengthen faith. Thus the spirit can front whatever is yet to come, nerved with the confidence that goodness and mercy are waiting for us along the path, ready to meet us again as we step forward.

Think often, and think much, of the gleams of joy with which the past was illumined. They were not given to be slighted and left forgotten; and it is to his lasting detriment that any one permits himself to slight or forget them. Call them up to your recollection when the spirit is bruised or burdened, and find in them a warrant for the brave trust that the God who has brightened your lot with smiles in former days will lift up the light of his countenance upon you again, and will never suffer you to be overwhelmed in darkness.