Thursday, December 26, 2013

Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Uses of Memory

Great and manifold truly are the uses of memory! In its quiet chambers, I do not think we ever listen in vain for more than we have heard amidst the tumult of the world. Memory is not a mere storehouse for dead things; for in it many old things become new. It is a place of instruction in which we earn some of the chief lessons of life, — a confessional in which we have much to deplore and much good counsel to receive, — a sanctuary in which to sing hymns of gratitude and praise which had been left unsung, — a place of healing and rest for the broken spirit, — a place of blessed fellowship with beloved ones whom we can meet nowhere else in all that remains to us of time, — a place in the peaceful and silent retirement of which, after the wind and the earthquake and the fire, there comes to us the 'still, small voice.'


Thomas Sadler (1822-1891)

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