Never Forget Anything by Youth's Companion

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1879

Never Forget Anything.

By Youth's Companion

CHARGE your mind with your duty. That is largely the true definition of faithfulness. But memory and mistakes are used as apologies a great deal oftener then necessary. A boy beginning business life will generally lose his place who pleads such an excuse more than once or twice.

A successful business man says there were two things which he learned when he was eighteen, which were afterwards of great use to him, namely: " Never to lose anything, and never to forget anything." An old lawyer sent him with an important paper, with certain instructions what to do with it.

"But," inquired the young man, "suppose I lose it; what shall I do then?"

The answer was, with the utmost emphasis, "You must not lose it?"

"I don't mean to," said the young man, "but suppose I should happen to?"

"But I say you must not happen to? I shall make no provision for any such occurrence. You must not lose it!"

This put a new train of thought into the young man's mind, and he found that if he was determined to do a thing he could do it. He made such provision against every contingency that he never lost anything. He found this equally true about forgetting. If a certain matter of importance was to be remembered, he pinned it down on his mind, fastened it there, and made it stay.—Youth's Companion.