Go Forward!'. 2

There were certain things which he FORGOT. Look at this a moment, for the word contains for us a secret we must learn if we would make progress northward. "Forgetting the things which are behind." "Remembering" is a favorite Bible word. We are constantly exhorted to remember, and urgently counseled not to forget. It is perilous to forget—to forget God, to forget the divine commandments. We are not to forget our past sinful condition, lest we grow cold. But there is a sense also in which our only hope is in forgetting. We never can get on to higher things if we insist on clinging to our past and carrying it with us. We can make progress only by forgetting. We can go forward only by leaving behind what is past.

For instance, we must forget our MISTAKES. There are many of them, too. We think of them in our serious moods, at the close of a year, when we are forced to review our past, or when some deep personal experience sets our life before us in retrospection. We sigh, "Oh, if I had not made that foolish decision! If I had not let that wrong companionship into my life! If I had not gone into that wretched business which proved so unfortunate! If I had not blundered so in trying to manage my own affairs! If I had not taken the bad advice which has led me into such hopeless consequences, how much better my life would have been!"

Some people keep compassing regretfully the same mountains of their one year's mistakes through all the following year. They do little but fret over their errors all the months which they ought to make bright with better things, nobler achievements, loftier attainments. But what good comes of it? Worry undoes no folly, corrects no mistakes, brings back nothing you have lost. A year of fretting sets you no farther forward. The best use you can possible make of last year's blunders is to forget them, and then to learn wisdom from the experience for this year. Remembering them, keeping them before you in painful regret—will only make you less strong for avoiding them hereafter. To err is human. We learn by making mistakes. Nobody ever does anything perfectly the first time he tries it. The artist spoils yards of canvas and reams of paper in mastering his art. It is the same in living. It takes most of a lifetime to learn how to do work passably well.

There is a way also by which our mistakes may be made to work good for us. We can so deal with them that they shall be made to yield good instead of evil. We well know, that many of life's best things in character and attainment have come out of blunders and follies. We owe far more than we know to our blunders. One day Ruskin was with a friend who, in great distress, showed him a fine handkerchief on which some one had carelessly let fall a drop of ink. The woman was vexed beyond measure at the hopeless ruining of her handkerchief. Ruskin said nothing, and took the handkerchief away with him. In a few days he brought it back—but ruined no longer. Using the blot as the base of a drawing, he had made an exquisite bit of India-ink work on the handkerchief, thus giving it a beauty and a value far beyond what it possessed before it had been blotted.

There is a strange power in the divine goodness which can take our mistakes and follies—and out of them bring beauty, blessing, and good. Forget your blunders, put them into the hands of Christ, leave them with him to deal with as he sees fit—and he will show them to you afterward as marks of loveliness, no longer as blunders—but as the very elements of maturation. Forget your mistakes and turn northward!

We should forget our HURTS. There are many hurts in every life. Somebody did you harm last year. Somebody was unkind to you, and left a sting in your memory. Somebody said something untrue about you; falsely maligned you; misrepresented you. You say you cannot forget these hurts, these injuries, these wrongs. But you would better. Do not nourish them. Only worse harm will come to you, from keeping them in your memory and thinking about them. Do not let them rankle in your heart. The Master forgot the wrongs and injuries done to him, and you have not suffered the one-thousandth part of the things he suffered from others. He loved on—as if no wrong had been done to him. A few moments after a boat has ploughed the water, the bosom of the lake is smooth again as ever. So it was in the heart of Jesus—after the most grievous injuries had been inflicted upon him. Thus should we forget the hurts done to us. Only worse hurt will come to us through our continuing to brood over our mistreatments. Crimes have been inspired—by remembering wrongs. But hurts forgotten in love, become new adornments in the life. A tiny grain of sand in a pearl oyster makes a wound; but instead of running to a festering sore—the wound becomes a pearl! So a wrong, patiently endured, mastered by love, adds new beauty to the life!

We should also forget our ATTAINMENTS—the things we have achieved, our successes. Nothing hampers and hinders a man more than thinking over the good or great things he has done in the past. There is many a man, who never achieved much worth while after doing one or two really worthy or beautiful things. The elation spoiled him—and that was the end of what might have been a fine career. There are men who once did a good thing, and have done little since but tell people about it. They have been compassing their Mount Seirmany days. If you did anything good, worthy, or great in the past—forget it! It belongs to last year and adorned it—but it will not be an honor for this year. Each year must have its own adornments. However fine any past achievements of ours may have been, they should be forgotten and left behind. We are to go on to perfection, making every year better than the one before. Dissatisfaction with what we have done, spurs us ever to greater things in the future!

We should forget also the SINS of the past. Somehow, many people think that their sins are the very things they never should forget. They feel that they must remember them, so that they shall be kept humble. But remembering our sins, weaving their memories into a garment of sackcloth and wearing it continually, is the very thing we ought not to do! Do we not believe in the forgiveness of our sins, when we have repented of them? God tells us that our sins and our iniquities he will remember no more, forever! We should forget them, too, accepting the divine mercy, and since they are so fully forgiven by our Father, our joy should be full.

One of the Psalms tells us of being brought up out of a horrible pit, and our feet set upon a rock. Then comes the song beginning: "He has put a new song in my mouth," rejoicing instead of hopeless grief over sin! Brood not a moment over your old sins. Compass the mountain no longer—but turn northward! Turn your penitence into consecration. Burn out the shame of your past evil—in the fires of love and new devotion.

These are suggestions of the meaning of Paul's secret of noble life. Of course we should never leave behind us and throw away anything that is good and beautiful. The blossom fades and falls—but from it comes the fruit. In the most transient experiences there are things which remain: influences, impressions, inspirations, elements of beauty, glimpses of better things. These we should keep as part of life's permanent treasure. Paul did not mean that in forgetting the things that were behind, he threw away the attainments of godly experience. In leaving the mountain and turning northward, the people did not leave the mountain behind them—they carried it with them. One never can forget a mountain nor lose the gifts it puts into one's life.

But all that is evanescent and transient is to be forgotten, left behind, while we move on to new things. Forget the things that are behind. Move entirely out of the past. It is gone and you have nothing whatever more to do with it. If it has been unworthy—it should be abandoned for something worthy. If it has been good—it should inspire us to things yet better. "You have compassed this mountain long enough: turn northward!" Paul also teaches this in the other word which he uses in his plan of progressive life. First, forget everything that is past. Then straining forward to what is ahead.

What are these things that are ahead, to which we ought to stretch? The answer may be given in a word—life. Jesus told his disciples he had come—that they might have life. We have no life until we receive it from Christ. Christ is the fountain from which all life flows. His own heart broke on the cross—that we might receive life— his life. Nothing will meet our need but life. A picture may seem perfect—but it is only a picture; it has no life.

There is a story of a sculptor who had chiseled a marble statue of a man. Michelangelo was asked to see it. He stood before the marble and was amazed at the success of the young artist. Every feature was perfect. The brow was massive. Intelligence beamed from the eyes. One foot was in the act of moving as if to step forward. Gazing at the splendid marble figure, Michelangelo said, "Now, march!" No higher compliment could the great artist have paid the sculptor. Yet there was no response. The statue was perfect in all the form of life—but there was no life in it. It could not march. Just so, it is possible for us to have all the semblance of life in our religious profession, in our orthodoxy of belief, in our morality, in our Christian achievements, in our conduct, in our devotion to the principles of right and truth—and yet not have life in us. Life is the great final blessing we should seek.

Not life merely, not just a little of it—but fullness of life. Jesus said he had come that we might have life and might have it abundantly. The turning northward was that the people might exchange the wilderness for Canaan. The wilderness meant emptiness, barrenness, sin's bitter harvest. Canaan was a type of heaven. What does turning northward mean for us today? It means a larger Christian life. Note some definite elements in its meaning:

We rejoice in all that God has done for us in the past. We are grateful for the blessings we have received. But we are only on the edge of the spiritual possibilities that are within our reach. We are in danger of sitting down in a sort of quiet contentment, as if there were no farther heights to be reached. "You have been going about this mountain long enough: turn northward." Northward is toward new and greater things, larger spiritual good, more abundant life. It means something intensely practical and real. It is a call to better life. We must be better men, better women, better Christians. We must be holier. The abundant life must be pure. One man wrote on a New Year's eve, that he wanted to be a cleaner man in the new year than ever before. "How I long to be clean all through! What a blessed life that must be!" We need all and always to seek the same cleanness. It must begin within. "Blessed are the pure in heart."

A little story tells of a man who was washing a large plate glass in a show window. There was one soiled spot on the glass which defied all his efforts to cleanse it. After a long and hard rubbing at it, with soap and water, the spot still remained, and then the man discovered that the spot was on the inside of the glass. There are many people who are trying to cleanse their lives from stains by washing the outside. They cut off evil habits and cultivate the moralities, so that their conduct and character shall appear white. Still they find spots and flaws which they cannot remove. The trouble is within. Their hearts are not clean, and God desires truth in the inward parts.

There is a story of a mother who had lost a beautiful child. She was inconsolable, and, to occupy her hands with something about her beloved child, in order that she might find comfort, she began to color a photograph of the precious little one. Her fingers wrought with wonderful skill and delicacy, and at length the face in the photograph seemed to have in it all the winsome beauty of life. The child appeared to the mother to live again before her eyes. When the work was done, she laid the picture away for a time in a drawer. When she took it out by and by, to look at it, the face was covered with blotches and the beauty was sadly marred. Again the mother took her brush, and with loving skill painted out the spots and touched the picture afresh, until once more the face had all its winsome beauty. Then again the photograph was laid away, and when it was brought out the blotches were there as before. There was some fault in the paper on which the likeness was printed.

Next Part Go Forward!'. 3

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