EVERY man who would carve out for himself a worthy career needs on the workbench of his endeavor a tool that rusts in idleness and grows sharp with proper use—namely, a good memory. To those gifted individuals whose minds, to use Byron's words, are as "wax to receive, and marble to retain," the action of memory is as spontaneous as speech, as unlabored as breathing. Many of the world's greatest intellects have been thus gifted, while others, in order to acquire proficiency, have had to undergo courses of mental training scarcely less rigorous than the physical training of the athlete, it being a universal belief that the power of memory can be developed by mental exercise, just as the power of muscle is increased by the courses of the gymnasium.
It is said of Pascal, the early French philosopher and savant, that his memory became so retentive by long training that he could repeat any chapter in the Bible that might be named. Bacon, whose memory was called imperial by Macaulay (who himself could repeat whole books after a second reading), Milton, Scott, and in later days Gladstone, all possessed minds of prodigious power of retention. Such extremes of proficiency are rare, but it lies well within the power of any one to improve his memory who will set himself about it intelligently and continue perseveringly. Numerous systems and methods for the development of memory have been devised, but they are without appeal to the Christian Scientist, for he has in the exercise of his religion a means that overshadows them all. In his daily endeavors to demonstrate the infinitude and omnipotence of Mind, he is enhancing his mental powers and enlarging his capacity for receiving and recalling impressions and states of consciousness. In Science and Health (p. 128) we read, "A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man."
No Christian Scientist need be burdened with a poor memory, if he would have a good one and is willing to work for it scientifically; and when thus attained, it is a unique and invaluable faculty. The memory rebuilt and reformed though Christian Science has a virtue which is as rare as it is admirable, for it can speedily erase those impressions whose retention makes for evil, and can hold fast to those that are good. Circumstances and events that move men most deeply are usually the most difficult to put out of mind. The kindness of yesterday may be forgotten tomorrow, but impressions of hatred, jealousy, deceit, greed, and the like would imbed themselves in thought for weeks and months. A man may be fully awake to the folly and mischief of nursing and rehearsing his sorrows and grievances, failures and mistakes, but there are two impediments in the way of his readily forgetting them, namely, his admitted inability and his unwillingness.
