^ H. Dudden, Christ and Christ's Religion, 249. ' H. Macmillan, The Ministry of Nature, 232.
364 PRESSING ON
IF One great truth for us all, says Goethe, is not that the past
is sullied, but that the future is unsullied. It is in this sense that
we should forget the things that are behind and reach on to the
things that are before. I may be reminded that to talk about
forgetting what we cannot help remembering is a contradiction in
terms. So it is; but, thank God, it is not a contradiction in
I experience. Others besides the Apostle Paul have come to realize
(that literal remembrance and moral forgetfulness can exist side
(by side in the same memory and heart. I have done things iii_
;,the past, sometimes from want of thought, sometimes from want
^ ' of heart — things I remember with sorrow and contrition. But I
have repented of them, and prayed for grace to bring forth fruits
; meet for repentance. And God has enabled me to realize His
I ■ .^ forgiveness so effectually that to-day the sins, while remembered,
I I \ are morally forgotten.^
\ \\ S \ A great editor once said : " The true secret of editing is to Icnow what to put into the waste-basket." Forgetting is the soul's place for losing discarded thoughts, depressing memories, mean ambitions, false standards, and low ideals.^
'^^-'Eiiie Jorgetfulness is the condition of moral progress. We must be perpetually cutting ourselves free from the past, if we are to push on to a larger and better future. The artist forgets his early failures, the author his first grotesque experiments in literature, and the saint his first stumbling steps, for the same reason — a reason which is imperative — that no progress is possible to a mind clogged by the weight of past errors. And herein hes -> \i the final justification of Christ's doctrine : we are allowed to forget " only on condition that we aspire. St. Paul forgets the past only because, and as long as, he is pressing to the mark of his high calling in Christ Jesus. The sinful woman is not condemned because she sins no more. The one anodyne of past sin is the constant exertion of the soul intent upon the struggle of virtue. Eelax that struggle, and all the past will rush back upon you like a desolating blackness. Consecrate yourself to that struggle^ and God will permit you to forget the past ; indeed, in the very act of struggling you will forget it.
\ On the eve of Waterloo it was necessary for Napoleon to warn his soldiers that they had forced marches in front of them — they knew what he meant, for they had experienced these before,
^ A. Sheplierd, Bible Studies in Living Subjects, 9. ^ "W. J. Jordan, The Grown of Individuality, 123.
PHILIPPIANS III. 13, 14 365
and they must be on the lookout for them again ; but that was only one side of the picture, and knowing that he had come up to a turning-point and a crisis, when a decisive victory must, if possible, be won, he selected two appropriate facts out of their past and brought them forward for his purpose, deliberately omitting and forgetting other and uglier passages that were behind. " Soldiers ! " he exclaimed, " this day is the anniversary of Marengo and of Friedland, which twice decided the destiny of Europe." This was the way to make their blood tingle and to fire their courage ; this was a picture of their power at its best, and it was • this picture that must go with them into the morrow. Waterloo was to be another Triedland or Marengo.^
^ George MacDonald makes one of his characters say to another, " Let bygones be bygones." " Deed no," is the reply ; " what's the use of bygones but to learn from them how to meet the bycomes ? " Yes, the only right use of " the bygones " is to teach us how to meet "the bycomes." If we remember our mistakes at all, let it only be to retrieve them, and organize fresh victory out of them.-
Where shall I hide the memories of my pain?
They lie like pictures on my spirit's walls. I draw the curtains 'gainst the wind and rain,
But over that past world no curtain falls To shroud the things behind.
I go to sleep, but sleep itself reveals
The phantoms of a day that long is fled,
And through the land of shadows softly steals The figured presence of the loved and dead To wake the things behind.
Would I not lose some glory by forgetting?
Have I not treasures drawn from days of old ? There is a sadness in the daylight's setting;
But who would miss the splendour of the gold To part with things behind ?
Keep then the gold, my soul, and hide the setting;
Thy Father shows to thee a path of peace ; Thou canst forget thy pain without forgetting
The forms and voices that can never cease To bless the things behind.
^ Spencer Jones, Now and Then, 18.
2 S. L. Wilson, Heljrful Words for Daily Life, 258.
;66 PRESSING ON
Turn memory into hope, and thou shalt see The past ilhimined by the future's glow;