ng what is now inevitable,
mourning over losses that cannot be repaired, thinking the days of old
better than those which are to be--and wasting their energies in
sorrowful reminiscences and wistful longings for a perished past,
instead of using their energies in the accomplishment of what may be
done for the winning of better crowns. It is against this practice that
the apostle's experience warns. This practice makes progress
impossible. It is a source of misery. It fetters the Christian mind. It
does not know that the resurrection has taken place. It makes life a
threnody instead of a hosanna. We are to turn from the past that we may
obtain the better future. Let me give you an example of the way in
which we are to forget the things which are behind, and reach forth
unto those things that are before.

I. It is worth our while to forget old doubts and questionings, through
absorption in the practical application of the truth brought us by
Jesus Christ. Most of the doubts and questionings which men have on the
subject of religion are very old. Their hair is gray with the anxious
thought of many centuries. They may be represented by old men, with
wrinkled foreheads and feeble knees, pretending by dress and manner to
be young. But you would be surprised to find how old they are, these
questions that disturb your religious faith and hinder you from the
performance of your whole duty.

There, for instance, is that weary question about the reason why God
allowed sin and misery to enter into his world--a question which men
are still pondering, under which they are still restless and sometimes
unhappy. But lo! it is as old as human history. The ancient Brahmins
wrestled with it. We find it echoed in the hymns of Chaldea that date
from the days of Abraham, in the songs of Greece, and in the literature
of the age of Solomon; and neither philosophy nor science, neither
discovery nor accident, has to this day been able to frame a
satisfactory answer.

In like manner the question how to harmonize in thought the absolute
sovereignty of God, who ruleth over all and designed the end from the
beginning, with the freedom and responsibility of man, is an ancient
problem which no answer has been found able to finally solve. Hindoo
philosophy settled it by fatalism, making man nothing and deities all.
Greek thought vibrated between the two extremes; and from the beginning
of Christian history the problem has vexed the ingenuity and taxe