seek nobility and greatness and victory. Here they are. Come, learn from Jesus the love of God. Let it win your heart; and as at his feet you look in that infinite, eternal sea of love, whose depths are fathomless and whose billows break on the shores of time--that love of God to man out of which Christ came to save our souls by death--as you gaze on it, rise with this resolve: "By thy grace, O Christ, I too will joy to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."
FORGETTING, AND PRESSING FORWARD.
"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."--PHILIPPIANS 3:13, 14.
FORGETTING, AND PRESSING ONWARD.
We are not to take the first part of this text too literally, nor press the apostle's words too closely. He certainly did not mean to say that he had forgotten all his past life and blotted out the memory of all that lay behind him. The Bible must be interpreted naturally, as you would interpret the language of ordinary writers. If we were to take texts =out of their connections and press the literal meaning of every clause and word, we would soon make the book a bundle of contradictions and reduce it to an actual absurdity. Unfortunately this has sometimes been done, and not a few of the differences of opinion which believers of the Bible have among themselves arise from such false and unreasonable methods of interpretation. So, as I have said, Paul did not mean that he had really forgotten the things that lay behind him. In fact, he refers again and again to his past life and experience. In this very chapter he relates his pedigree. Often he refers to his state of mind before he became a Christian--to his spiritual unrest and vain efforts after peace. Still oftener does he recount the story of his conversion, and hold himself up to all ages as a miracle of grace and a monument of Divine mercy. He was very far, therefore, from having forgotten the way along which he had been led. It had been too momentous both for himself and others. It had been too full of both storm and sunshine not to be worth remembering. It had written, as with a pen of steel, lessons of law and love upon the soul of the apostle, and in characters too deep ever to be obliterated.
What, then, did Paul mean when he here describes himself as "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before"? He meant his language to be understood comparatively and relatively. He was thinking chiefly of the new life which had been opened before him by Jesus Christ, and of the enthusiasm and devotion with which he pursued it. He likens himself to a contestant in a foot-race, whose eye is bent on the track before him, not on that behind his back--who is ever measuring in thought the distance yet to be traveled until the prize is won. He meant, therefore, that he was so absorbed in the new pursuits and duties given him by Jesus Christ that his past life was comparatively forgotten. He did not mourn the honors in the Jewish Church which he had lost by becoming a Christian. He did not dwell upon the anger of his Hebrew friends, now that he had the friendship of Christ himself. He did not regret the sacrifice he had made, since a better reward had been bestowed upon him. He did not let past troubles hamper present actions, nor past successes cause him to rest upon his laurels, nor past services satisfy him, nor past losses embitter him. He turned resolutely to the future. He pushed ahead in his divinely appointed way. He let the dead past bury its dead, while he was absorbed in the living present and the coming future. Speaking relatively, in comparison with the absorbing business of his life, he could say, "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Thus understood, St. Paul's language becomes exceedingly suggestive of things that it is worth our while to forget, and the way in which we should forget them. Like him, we are not required to blot out the remembrance of the past. There could be no improvement if we did not remember past mistakes and profit by them. It is often our sweetest joy and highest pride to think of the days that are no more, of the wondrous history of mankind, of our
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