show you so exalted a
Jesus as to put him beyond the reach of imitation. He came to make us
like himself. And I ask if any other ideals of life can compare with
this--if they are not poor and mean--if this does not soar above them.
You claim to 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 h