but it did not spring entirely from them. There was in them a seed
of good, for which I shall always love and honour them, even though
I differ from them; and that was, a noble hatred of sin. They felt
the sinfulness of sin; and they hated themselves for having sinned.
The mercy of God made them only the more ashamed of themselves for
having rebelled against him. Their longing after holiness only made
them loathe the more their past unholiness. They carried that
feeling too far: but they were noble people, men and women of God;
and we may say of them, that, 'Wisdom is justified of all her
children.'

But I wish you to run into neither extreme. I only ask you to look
at your past lives, if you have ever been open sinners, as St. Paul
looked at his. There is no sentimental melancholy in him; no
pretending to be miserable; no trying to make himself miserable. He
is saved, and he knows it. He is an apostle, and he stands boldly
on his dignity. He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful: but whenever he
speaks of his past life (and he speaks of it often), it is with
noble shame and sorrow. Then he looks to himself the chief of
sinners, not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted
the Church of Christ. What he is, he will not deny. What he was,
he will not forget, he dare not forget, lest he should forget that
the good which he does, _he_ does not--for in him (that is, in his
flesh, his own natural character), dwelleth no good thing--but
Christ, who dwells in him; lest he should grow puffed up, careless,
self-indulgent; lest he should neglect to subdue his evil passions;
and so, after having preached to others, himself become a castaway.

So let us do, my friends. Let us not be too hasty in forgiving
ourselves. Let us thank God cheerfully for the present. Let us
look on hopefully to the future; let us not look back too much at
the past, or rake up old follies which have been pardoned and done
away. But let us thank God whenever he thinks fit to shew us the
past, and bring our sin to our remembrance. Let us thank him, when
meeting an old acquaintance, passing by an old haunt, looking over
an old letter, reminds us what fools we were ten, twenty, thirty
years ago. Let us thank him for those nightly dreams, in which old
tempers, old meannesses, old sins, rise up again in us into ugly
life, and frighten us by making us in our sleep, what we were once,
God forgive us! when broad awake. I am not superstiti