an art at intervals by spurts, as a _parergon_--a thing that is
done in the intervals of other occupations--and that the other makes it
his life's business. There are a great many amateur Christians amongst
us, who pursue the Christian life by spurts and starts. If you want to
be a Christian after God's pattern--and unless you are you are scarcely
a Christian at all--you have to make it your business, to give the same
attention, the same concentration, the same unwavering energy to it
which you do to your trade. The man of one book, the man of one idea,
the man of one aim is the formidable and the successful man. People will
call you a fanatic; never mind. Better be a fanatic and get what you aim
at, which is the highest thing, than be so broad that, like a stream
spreading itself out over miles of mud, there is no scour in it
anywhere, no current, and therefore stagnation and death. Gather
yourselves together, and amidst all the side issues and nearer aims keep
this in view as the aim to which all are to be subservient--that,
'whether I eat or drink, or whatsoever I do, I may do all to the glory
of God.' Let sorrow and joy, and trade and profession, and study and
business, and house and wife and children, and all home joys, be the
means by which you may become like the Master who has died for this end,
that we may become partakers of His holiness.

III. Pursue this end with a wise forgetfulness.

'Forgetting the things that are behind.' The art of forgetting has much
to do with the blessedness and power of every life. Of course, when the
Apostle says 'Forgetting the things that are behind,' he is thinking of
the runner, who has no time to cast his eye over his shoulder to mark
the steps already trod. He does not mean, of course, either, to tell us
that we are so to cultivate obliviousness as to let God's mercies to us
'lie forgotten in unthankfulness, or without praises die.' Nor does he
mean to tell us that we are to deny ourselves the solace of remembering
the mercies which may, perhaps, have gone from us. Memory may be like
the calm radiance that fills the western sky from a sun that has set,
sad and yet sweet, melancholy and lovely. But he means that we should so
forget as, by the oblivion, to strengthen our concentration.

So I would say, let us remember, and yet forget, our past failures and
faults. Let us remember them in order that the remembrance may cultivate
in us a wise chastening of our self-confidence.