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Great sinners have even prayed for madness as a blessing, because they knew that memory would perish with the mind, of which it is a part. But nature was ever saying to them, "Son, remember." The intoxicating cup owes not a little of its fascination to its power of drowning hateful memories. Lord Byron says —

"I plunged amid mankind. Forgetfulness

I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found,

And that I have to learn."Oh, give me the art of oblivion, cried Themistocles. A man once offered to teach a philosopher the art of memory for five talents. "I will give you ten talents," was the reply, "if you will teach me the art of forgetting." Very touching is the old-world fable that between earth and the happy plains of Elysium — the classical heaven — the river Lethe flows, and that whoever tastes its waters forgets all his past. The heathens knew that there could be no happiness hereafter unless somehow memory let go its hold of past sins. Gentle sleep owes its healing power to this, that it helps us to forget. Oh, to bury our dead past as men bury their dead out of their sight; for one sin vividly remembered has sometimes power to make the whole life bitter. "Forgetfulness," it has been said, "is the daughter of time," but our parable shows that she is not always the daughter of eternity, as forgetting is impossible to the unpardoned.

(J. Wells.)

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KJV: There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

WEB: "Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.