* APR. 1 1902 * 
 
 RV 4501 .P87 1901 
 
 Jirves, George T. 1852-1901 
 
 Joy in service 
 
JOY IN SERVICE. 
 
 FORGETTING, AND PRESSING 
 ONWARD. 
 
 UNTIL THE DAY DAWN. 
 Rev. GEORGE T. PURVES. D. D., LL. D. 
 
 THE TEACHER AND PASTOR. 
 Prest. F. L.Patton, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 150 Nassau Street, New York 
 
Copyright, iqoi, 
 By AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
CONTEMTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Joy in Service, 7 
 
 "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the 
 will of him that sent me, and to finish his 
 work." 
 
 Forgetting, and Pressing Onward, . 45 
 
 " Forgetting these things which are behind, 
 and reaching forth to those things which 
 are before, I press towards the mark for 
 the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 " Until the Day Dawn," ... 83 
 " The things which are not seen are eternal." 
 
 The Teacher and Pastor, ... 87 
 
 Address of Dr. F. L. Patton, at the funeral of 
 Dr. Purves. 
 
"Jesus saitk unto them. My meat is to do 
 the will of him that sent me, and to finish his 
 work." — John 4: 34. 
 
JOY IN SERVICE. 
 
 This is one of the sentences 
 that dropped from the lips of 
 Christ, which let us into his per- 
 sonal spiritual life and in some 
 measure lay bare his mind. To 
 be permitted thus to share his 
 confidence is one of our greatest 
 privileges. Viewing him from a 
 distance, we may admire his char- 
 acter ; viewing him in history, we 
 may confess his incomparable 
 power ; viewing him when convin- 
 cing us of our own sin, we may 
 adore him as our Saviour ; but 
 
3o^ in Service, 
 
 we desire, and may have, a still 
 more intimate acquaintance. He 
 tells us about himself. He de- 
 scribes here and there his personal 
 inner life. He permits us to share 
 his secrets, and all that we other- 
 wise feel of reverence, admiration, 
 and gratitude gives new value to 
 these disclosures of the spiritual 
 life of the God in man. 
 
 Now, in the words before us, 
 Christ describes his joy in the serv- 
 ice of the Father. They reveal 
 a devotion so complete as to en- 
 tirely control his mind. They 
 reveal a soul so absorbed in doing 
 the Divine will as to be insensible 
 for the time to ordinary physical 
 needs. They reveal a self-conse- 
 cration which is absolute, and yet 
 which is so spontaneous and glad 
 as to be self-sustaining ; so that 
 
50K? in Service. 
 
 Christ needed no other support in 
 serving the.. Father than simply 
 the opportunity of such service. 
 We, on the contrary, require sup- 
 port to enable us to serve. We 
 must be rewarded for our work, 
 must be encouraged by sympathy, 
 must be fed with promises and 
 spiritual gifts, in order to be 
 strong enough to do our duty. 
 Christ found duty its own reward, 
 service itself joy, obedience a 
 source of renewed strength. His 
 will was one with the Father's ; 
 and thus he discloses the, to us, 
 marvelous spectacle of one who 
 could truly say, Not my desire or 
 my duty, or my purpose is, but 
 my meat — my food — my source 
 itself of life and strength — is to do 
 the will of God, and to finish h-is 
 work. 
 
lo 3os in Service. 
 
 And yet our Lord Jesus was a 
 very genuine man. He did not 
 impress observers with the com- 
 mon insig-nia of holiness. It was 
 the Pharisees, not Christ, who 
 stood at the corners of the streets 
 to make long prayers, who en- 
 larged the borders of their phy- 
 lacteries and chose the chief seats 
 in the synagogues. It was the 
 Baptist, not Jesus, who clothed 
 himself in a garment of camel's 
 hair and ate locusts and wild 
 honey. Jesus, on the contrary, 
 lived the outward life of other 
 men, consorted with them in their 
 usual places of resort, dressed and 
 spake as they did ; so that, in out- 
 ward manner, it was impossible to 
 distinguish him from the common 
 mass in which he moved. All the 
 more precious, therefore, is this 
 
5o^ in Service. 
 
 revelation of his inner life. What 
 a soul was his ! The thought up- 
 permost in his mind was devotion 
 to the Father's will. The joy 
 which most gladdened his lonely 
 life was the joy of unknown, but 
 sublime and perfect, obedience. 
 He had been pointing a Samaritan 
 woman, sitting by the wellside, to 
 the salvation of God ; and though 
 she was but one, and that to human 
 eyes an unworthy subject, — though 
 she was a Samaritan and an open 
 sinner, — his soul found such in- 
 tense pleasure m bringing her — as 
 the Father had sent him to bring 
 men anywhere — to the knowledge 
 of the truth, that fatigue and hun- 
 ger were forgotten, and all his 
 energies were absorbed in the 
 delight of the task. In this I think 
 Christ appears simply Divine. No 
 
5o\? in Service. 
 
 later fame or success, no gaudy 
 robes of human praise, no gilded 
 crown of human admiration, are 
 needed to adorn him. He dis- 
 closes the very ideal of a godly 
 life. All our poor efforts at obedi- 
 ence, all our faint aspirations after 
 the knowledc*-e and love of God, 
 all our unfulfilled prayers, and 
 falline fliof^its, and unredeemed 
 promises and sin-stained attempts 
 to serve, confess the ideal perfect- 
 ness of him who could truthfully 
 say, " My meat is to do the will 
 of him that sent me, and to finish 
 his work." 
 
 I. Let us first, then, draw a little 
 closer to this peerless soul, in 
 which there was such perfect sense 
 of the worth of infinite things, and 
 let us note more particularly, and 
 appreciate as far as wc are able, 
 
So^ in Service. 13 
 
 this phase of the character of the 
 Son of Man. 
 
 I have said that Christ was a 
 very natural man. But he was 
 more than that. I am sure that 
 none can study his character with- 
 out admitting and admiring the 
 perfect proportion in which truth 
 evidently lay in his mind. This 
 is one of the rarest beauties of 
 character. Most of us are very 
 one-sided. We can grasp but a 
 part of truth ; and in order to 
 grasp that part firmly, we have to 
 absolutely let other truth go. In 
 order to be devoted to duty as we 
 see it, we commonly have to leave 
 other duties untouched. Our spir- 
 itual growth ought to take just 
 this direction of includino- broader 
 views of truth and duty, of ob- 
 taining a conception of life in 
 
14 3o>s in Servjfce. 
 
 which the various elements shall 
 be held in their proper relations 
 and proportions ; no one allowed 
 to eclipse the others, but each 
 modified to a proper extent by the 
 presence and influence of the rest. 
 I say this is a rare achievement. 
 No one but Christ has ever 
 achieved it perfectly. It is easy to 
 see that even the apostles, inspired 
 as they were, did not equally ap- 
 preciate all sides of revelation. 
 They have their distinguishing 
 doctrines and points of view. 
 
 It is still easier to see that 
 Christian churches and theolo- 
 gians differ for this same reason, 
 and to a much greater extent. No 
 creed, no church, no theology, that 
 builds on the Word of God, can 
 be wholly wrong. Its difference 
 from others must lie in its partial 
 
3o^ in Service, 15 
 
 appreciation of the truth, in its in- 
 ability to take in all truths in their 
 relative proportion. And so in 
 literature and science and philoso- 
 phy some men are impressed with 
 material evidences, others with 
 moral. Some men are poets, 
 others are logicians ; some criti- 
 cal, others dogmatic. The hope 
 of the future for the Church and 
 for humanity is in the slow ap- 
 proximation and combination of 
 these partial views, until at last, 
 " in the unity of the faith and of 
 the knowledge of the Son of God, 
 we shall come unto a perfect man, 
 unto the measure of the stature of 
 the fullness of Christ." Mean- 
 while, at thebeginning of our Chris- 
 tian history, Christ stands perfect. 
 To see this is to appreciate his 
 authority. As Paul said, He is 
 
i6 3o5 in Service. 
 
 the corner stone of the spiritual 
 temple which the Divine Spirit is 
 building. 
 
 I do not mean that he taught 
 explicitly all the truth which later 
 times have discovered, or which 
 after him apostles taught. But 
 he laid the living germs of all 
 later religious truth, and he held 
 them in such perfect proportion 
 that when the long course of his- 
 tory shall be finished, when that 
 which is in part shall have been 
 done away, and that which is per- 
 fect shall have come, the result will 
 be but the reproduction on a large 
 scale of the already perfect stature 
 of Christ. 
 
 And this is particularly mani- 
 fested in Christ's views of life. 
 His peerless spirituality did not 
 make him an ascetic. His clear 
 
Jos in Service. 17 
 
 vision of the future did not lead 
 him to despise the present. His 
 love of God did not destroy his 
 love of nature or of man. His 
 hatred of sin did not cause him to 
 shun the sinner. Hence, though 
 our Lord was the model of a reli- 
 gious man, he was no enthusiast, 
 still less a fanatic. The enthu- 
 siast is a man who sees but part of ' 
 truth and magnifies it out of its 
 proportion ; and the fanatic is one , 
 who, in addition to this, hates what 
 he cannot understand. According 
 to Isaac Taylor, " Fanaticism is 
 enthusiasm inflamed by hatred." 
 But Christ exaggerated nothing 
 and hated no man. He hated sin, 
 but no sinner. His boundless, 
 tender love itself prevented such 
 moral distortion. And, therefore, 
 he is the ideal or model of human 
 
3o\? in Service. 
 
 life. We do not feel that in striv- 
 ing to imitate even his most spir- 
 itual qualities we shall become 
 impractical or unnatural. We do 
 not feel this in the case of most 
 other holy men. They become 
 examples of one virtue by exag- 
 gerating it. But Christ never did 
 this. Lofty as the view of life was 
 which he discloses in our text, sub- 
 lime as was its spiritual consecra- 
 tion, it existed in him in harmony 
 with the life which by its thor- 
 oughly human and practical fea- 
 tures proves that we too, in at 
 least some measure, can make 
 even his highest traits our ex- 
 emplars. Look, therefore, at this 
 text which discloses his mind, and 
 mark its principal elements. 
 
 I. There is first disclosed the 
 stronof and constant consciousness 
 
30^ in Service. 19 
 
 that he had a distinct errand in 
 the world. He knew that he had 
 been born for a purpose, that a 
 divine aim was in his coming, and 
 that a positive result would follow 
 his life. This sense of a definite 
 errand was expressed by him on 
 numerous occasions ; in some of 
 them quite incidentally, and in 
 others more directly. You re- 
 member how, as a boy in the tem- 
 ple, he said to his mother, " Wist 
 ye not that I must be about my 
 Father's business ? " You remem- 
 ber how, at the marriage in Cana, 
 he said to her again, " My hour is 
 not yet come." So with that pre- 
 cious phrase which on several occa- 
 sions fell from his lips, " The Son 
 of Man is come to seek and to save 
 that which is lost." He regarded 
 himself as one sent from God ; 
 
20 5og in Service* 
 
 and when his life was about over 
 he lifted up his eyes to heaven and 
 said, " Father, the hour is come ; I 
 have glorified thee on the earth ; 
 I have finished the work which 
 thou gavest me to do." 
 
 So in our text, " My meat is to 
 do the will of him that sent me, 
 and to finish his work." He was 
 here on a special errand, and that 
 errand was always before his mind. 
 Earth was but a place of appointed 
 work. Life was to him an office, 
 a stewardship. He had this con- 
 sciousness, even when he seemed 
 to be accomplishing nothing. It 
 gave unity to all his acts and 
 words. To Galilean peasants 
 and to Jewish scribes he could 
 speak with equal assurance, be- 
 cause his errand was to both. Yet 
 he knew its limitations. He said 
 
501? in Service, 21 
 
 to the Syro-Phoenician woman, " I 
 am not sent save to the lost sheep 
 of the house of Israel." He had 
 comedo a special work among the 
 Jews, and in that a work for all 
 mankind. He had not come to be 
 glorified. He had not come to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister. 
 But he had come on a distinct 
 errand ; and whatever be your 
 doctrine of Christ's person, you 
 must confess that he considered 
 himself no accident of history; 
 that he did not regard his life 
 work as originating in his own 
 choice ; that his sense of a mission 
 did not come as an afterthought 
 to him, or grow clear as he ad- 
 vanced in life. He felt his special 
 errand from the start. It was 
 always before his mind, so that 
 life was to him the performance 
 
22 3os in Service. 
 
 of a given task and the fulfillment 
 of an assigned duty. 
 
 2. But furthermore, our text dis- 
 closes that, to Christ's mind, this 
 errand of his in the world derived 
 its sanctity from the fact that it 
 was the will or wish of his Father. 
 Every man is governed by some 
 controlling motive or class of mo- 
 tives. The lowest of all is the 
 motive of personal gain and pleas- 
 ure, and the sorrows and sins of 
 men chiefly spring from the tyr- 
 anny of this degraded passion. 
 Hiorher than it is the motive of 
 pity and compassion, which may 
 lead us to do good for the sake 
 of benefitinor others. This is the 
 spring of much charity and philan- 
 thropy, and, so far as it goes, it is 
 of course to be commended. But 
 there is a higher motive than even 
 
^08 In Service. 23 
 
 it, and Christ reveals it to us here. 
 It is the wish to do God's will. 
 Such was his motive. To him the 
 will of the Father was the perfect 
 good. He knew of nothing nobler 
 than it, so that the whole energy 
 of his character consisted in the 
 force of obedience. 
 
 This phrase may carry us back 
 to that time in the counsels of the 
 Godhead when, as we conceive 
 such matters, the Father deter- 
 mined to save the world that had 
 rebelled against him. The ques- 
 tion was, where to find a Saviour ; 
 and the spirit of the Divine Son 
 was manifested in his self-dedica- 
 tion to the work. He, too, loved 
 man, but that was not his main mo- 
 tive. He loved the Father. He ap- 
 preciated the Father's wish to save. 
 He gave himself to carry out that 
 
24 301? in Service. 
 
 wish. " Lo, I come," said he, 
 " to do thy will, O God." Thus 
 we may perceive, I think, the deep 
 reality in the Divine Sonship of 
 Christ ; and certainly on earth this 
 was his controlling motive. He 
 was obedient even unto death. 
 To obey to the very least partic- 
 ular the Father's will was the 
 principle of his being. To him 
 the Father's will was not hard, 
 stern law, as we with our rebel- 
 lious instincts so often regard it ; 
 it was the Father's wish. When 
 love exists between two persons, 
 the will of one it is the other's joy 
 to do, if possible. Love impels to 
 its accomplishment. Love rejoices 
 in being of service, in giving the 
 loved one pleasure, in carrying 
 out the other's desire. So the will 
 of God was, to Christ, his Father's 
 
3o^ in Service. 25 
 
 wish. Obedience was the main- 
 spring of his soul's life, and his 
 errand in the world derived its 
 sanctity and its glory — in spite of 
 man's antagonism and in spite of 
 apparent fruitlessness — from the 
 fact that it was the will of God. 
 In this Christ discloses the very 
 highest spiritual life which it is 
 possible to conceive. How mar- 
 velous was this ! He who has won 
 the greatest influence over the 
 race, he before whom the head 
 bows in adoration, he who has 
 changed already the course of his- 
 tory, and will change it until every 
 knee has bowed to him, was one 
 whose supreme wish was to be an 
 obedient Son. Instead of con- 
 quering by selfishness he con- - 
 quered by self-abnegation. In- 
 stead of doing his own work, he 
 
26 3os in Service. 
 
 gave himself up to doing his 
 Father's. Here is at once a mira- 
 cle of history and a model of life 
 of which man would never have 
 dreamed. 
 
 3. As a consequence of all this 
 we can perceive in the language 
 of the text Christ's joy in the dis- 
 
 ' covery of a special opportunity of 
 carrying out the highest purpose 
 of the Father's will. It would 
 seem that his meeting with the 
 
 . Samaritan woman awakened al- 
 most a state of excitement in his 
 mind. It lifted him above the 
 reach of physical desires. This I 
 suppose was because he recognized 
 in that meeting an opportunity of 
 doing what he knew was dearest 
 to his Father's heart. His errand 
 was to ultimately save the world, 
 and now he was engaged in saving 
 
Jog in Service, 27 
 
 at least one soul. No doubt his 
 devotion to the Father's will sus- 
 tained him, even in the darkest 
 hour. When the will of God con- 
 signed him to the hatred of men, 
 to the rejection of the people, 
 to the bitter sorrow of the cross, 
 he could bow his head in humble 
 compliance and say, " Thy will, 
 not mine, be done." But he knew 
 well that the Father willed his 
 sorrows in order to the world's 
 salvation, and that the object 
 dearest to the Father's heart was 
 the recovery of lost souls. He 
 himself has told us of the ang-els' 
 joy over such. And he has de- 
 scribed the whole object of his ap- 
 pearing to man by these matchless 
 words : " God so loved the world 
 that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in 
 
28 3op in Service. 
 
 him might not perish, but have 
 everlasting life." And therefore 
 his love of God the Father, no 
 less than his love of man, made 
 him hail with especial joy such an 
 opportunity as this. We may 
 fairly say that Christ followed the 
 lead of providence. He did him- 
 self what he requires of us ; he 
 was quick to recognize opportuni- 
 ties. He heard in them a divine 
 call ; and by all his sense of his 
 mission among men, by all his de- 
 sire to please the Father, did he 
 hail the rising faith of that Sa- 
 maritan and rejoice in bringing 
 to her the message of salvation. 
 Hence I say his evident excite- 
 ment, if we may use the phrase. 
 Hence his obliviousness to hun- 
 ger. Hence his forgetfulness of 
 his former fatigue. " Lift up 
 
5oB in Ser\>ic€. 29 
 
 your eyes," he cried to his disci- 
 ples, "and look on the fields, 
 for they are white already unto 
 harvest." The Father's will would 
 be accomplished, and in the joy of 
 service his soul found its food. 
 He wanted nothing else. Such 
 fruitful obedience was to him its 
 own reward. 
 
 I say again., therefore, what a 
 spiritual life was this ! Praise it- 
 self seems almost to defile it. It 
 was perfect. It was sublime. 
 Thus can we understand his sin- 
 lessness. We can imaoine no 
 higher ideal ; and marvelous to 
 say, here was the ideal realized. 
 We cannot wonder any longer 
 that over this Jesus of Nazareth 
 God should say, " This is my be- 
 loved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased." 
 
30 501? in Service. 
 
 II. And now, while admiring, 
 , we are to ask if it is possible for us 
 to imitate in principle this spirit- 
 ual life, of which the Master gave 
 so fine an example. Possibly, you 
 may say, we may imitate some of 
 the least remarkable traits, but 
 scarcely this. And yet this lies 
 at the root and soul of the rest : 
 imitation of them is but external 
 and spurious if it does not reach 
 this. Only by this can we have 
 real fellowship with him. 
 
 We are met at the outset by 
 man's natural reluctance to even 
 think of regarding the will of 
 God as aught but repulsive. Very 
 often objection is openly made to 
 the spiritual view expressed by 
 Christ. God, it is said, must surely 
 want to educate us into the love 
 of virtue and truth for their own 
 
501? in Service* 31 
 
 sakes. He does not want merely 
 to conquer us, to break our wills 
 by superior power. He wants to 
 lead us to share his own spirit and 
 life; and, therefore, would not ask 
 us to submit merely to his will. 
 To train men, therefore, to merely 
 obey is not so noble as to train 
 men to reason, or to love truth and 
 riehteousness for their own sakes. 
 But we reply that we should attain 
 to the most exalted love of truth 
 and righteousness and every other 
 noble thing in no way so well as 
 through loyalty to God. Cer- 
 tainly God does not want to merely 
 conquer us by force, but of all 
 things in the world that is the one 
 not exhibited in Jesus Christ. 
 His was the obedience of love. It 
 sprang from his admiration of the 
 Father's nature. And so must 
 
32 3os in Service* 
 
 ours. God has laid us under im- 
 measurable obliorations of erati- 
 tude. He has condescended to re- 
 veal himself to us. He has given 
 proof of his wisdom, his love, his 
 holiness, his righteousness. And, 
 therefore, the will of God is no 
 arbitrary commandment. It is the 
 wish of our dearest Friend. It 
 is the direction given from the 
 world's Pilot. It is the direction 
 of infinite wisdom and righteous- 
 ness and love ; and to be devoted 
 to his will is but to be confident 
 that all his frlorious attributes are 
 being expressed for our guidance. 
 And then, what should we say 
 of one who seeks after truth 
 and righteousness, and yet does 
 not yield obedience to him who is 
 the source of all things — the truth, 
 
 o 
 
 the righteousness ? We should 
 
5os in Service, 33 
 
 probably conclude that his search 
 was a fancy, his aspiration an illu- 
 sion. No ! What we need is to 
 love the Lord our God with all 
 our heart, to feel that he is the 
 wisest, the most lovely — the em- 
 bodiment and the source of all 
 other wisdom and goodness ; the 
 Sun by which the other planets 
 shine, by whose rays the world of 
 nature receives its life and beauty. 
 We need to love God supremely ; 
 and if we do, then the will of God 
 will seem to us always good, even 
 as it did to Christ. 
 
 *' Man's weakness, waiting upon God, 
 Its end can never miss; 
 For men on earth no work can do 
 More angel-like than this. 
 
 ** He always wins who sides with God. 
 To him no chance is lost; 
 
34 3o\> in Service. 
 
 God's will is sweetest to him when 
 It triumphs at his cost. 
 
 " 111 that he blesses is our good, 
 And unblessed good our ill; 
 And all is right that seems most wrong, 
 If it be his sweet will." 
 
 Let man behold, through Christ, 
 the infinite Father, the source of 
 all life and blessedness and good, 
 and man will put God first, and 
 find his highest glory in acting 
 out the prayer, " Thy will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven." 
 
 But even so, we are met by 
 the further difficulty that, unlike 
 Christ, we are not always sensi- 
 ble of being sent on any special 
 errand into the world. We lose 
 what aim we have, amid the diver- 
 sities of toil to which we are com- 
 pelled. We lose what breadth of 
 
30^ in Service. 35 
 
 view we have, amid the multitude 
 of trifles of which our lives are 
 composed. We can imagine 
 Christ's sense of his mission, and 
 how it could absorb him ; l)ut 
 what in our lots can correspond? 
 It may indeed be true that, un- 
 like Christ, you have no clear 
 idea of why God sent you into 
 the world. Few have, but it 
 would seem to quite remove God 
 from actual government of the 
 world to say that, therefore, he 
 had no purpose. That glowing 
 picture which the apostle paints 
 of the rising temple should for- 
 bid the doubt. Every stone has 
 its place and is needed. It may 
 need to be broken and hewn, to 
 be polished ; it may be hid in an 
 unseen place within the wall ; no 
 man may notice it. But the 
 
3<> 3o^ in Service. 
 
 Builder meant it to be there, and 
 it contributes its share to the 
 work before which the ages of 
 eternity shall fall in wonder ; that 
 work which is to manifest to the 
 principalities and powers in the 
 heavenly places the manifold wis- 
 dom of God. We may dismiss 
 the doubt therefore, since God is 
 God. We have been made and 
 sent here for a purpose. God's 
 will is meaning to use us, and it 
 is our duty and privilege now to 
 carry out, as far as possible, that 
 will of him that sent us, so far as 
 he has made it known. And cer- 
 tainly, brother man, enough of 
 the Father's will is made known 
 to teach us our work. 
 
 We may rejoice to do his will 
 as revealed m co7iscience. He has 
 placed within the soul of man a 
 
So^ in Service. 37 
 
 guide which, within certain limits, 
 and as applied to special acts and 
 circumstances, infallibly indicates 
 his will. So far as it acts, no man 
 can say he is ignorant ; and the 
 true child of God will give heed 
 and say, " This is the will of God." 
 Conscience' will itself be re-en- 
 forced by being so regarded; and 
 it is practically impossible to 
 question conscience, as to most 
 of the practical duties of life, 
 without plainly hearing, " This 
 is the way." 
 
 But we may further rejoice to 
 do his will as revealed m Scrip- 
 ture. Here he has gone beyond 
 the starlight of conscience and 
 flooded the world with the sun- 
 liorht of his revelation. The 
 Scriptures contain the will of 
 God for our salvation. They 
 
 l» 
 
5o^ in Service. 
 
 speak in no doubtful tone. We 
 may be as certain as Jesus was 
 what the \vill of the Father is. 
 Paul called himself an apostle 
 " by the will of God" ; so may we. 
 " This is the work of God, that 
 ye believe on him whom he hath 
 sent." It is the will of God that 
 we trust him, that we serve him, 
 that we be holy as he is holy, that 
 we extend his knowledge. These 
 are as absolute commands as are 
 those of the Decalogue ; and the 
 true child will take this revela- 
 tion for his guidance, and by its 
 light will try to carry out his 
 F'ather's will. 
 
 But you may say, " Much of 
 this direction is general, it is not 
 specific. What is the specific 
 will of God for me?" I answer 
 therefore, finally, that we may, like 
 
5os In Service. 39 
 
 Christ, rejoice to do his will as 
 revealed in providence. I have 
 tried to show that even Christ 
 followed where the Father led, 
 embraced opportunities, met new 
 circumstances, prepared for "the 
 hour." And certainly we are to 
 do so. The will of God for each 
 one of us is unfolded by the 
 events of life. These are not 
 causeless. They are not a chance 
 medley of good and bad. God 
 rules : not a sparrow falls with- 
 out him. And therefore, as provi- 
 dence unrolls the will of God for 
 us, the true child is to accept and 
 obey. Now he brings an oppor- 
 tunity ; now he lays a burden/ 
 Now he tries us with prosperity ; 
 now with sorrow. Now he sends 
 us into battle and temptation ; now 
 he lays us on beds of pain and 
 
40 5oi? in Service. 
 
 idleness. Now he wounds, and 
 now he heals ; the way opens 
 under his Divine guidance. It 
 may lift us up, it may cast us 
 down. As with Christ, I say, so 
 with us. It may give us a soul 
 to save, it may cause our plans to 
 be rejected, it may lead to Geth- 
 semane, it may translate us to 
 glory ; but in all it is the will of 
 him that sent us, the work he has 
 for us to do. In all, infinite wis- 
 dom, the Father's goodness, and 
 eternal righteousness move. He 
 shows the way, and man's highest 
 privilege — yea, man's strength and 
 food — is to do his will, because we 
 love and trust and adore him so 
 entirely that what he wishes, that 
 we are glad to do. 
 
 I hold, therefore, before us 
 Christ's joy in service as not be- 
 
3o\? in 5erv>icc. 41 
 
 yond our power to imitate ; and I 
 ask if conapience and reason do 
 not testify that this is the loftiest 
 ideal in life which we can have. 
 When we -reach heaven, this will 
 be realized. But here, in the 
 desert, now, in this world of sin, 
 is the time to begin. I do not 
 show you so exalted a Jesus as to 
 put him beyond the reach of imi- 
 tation. ^^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, eter- 
 nal sea of love, whose depths are 
 
42 
 
 3o5 in Service. 
 
 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 
 fesus." — PhiLIPPIANS 3:13, I4. 
 
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 inter- 
 preted naturally, as you would 
 interpret the language of ordinary 
 writers. If we were to take texts 
 
^6 
 
 foraettina, and 
 
 out of their connections and press 
 the literal meaning of every clause 
 and word, we would soon make 
 the book a bundle of contradic- 
 tions 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 
 
ressina ©nwar&. 47 
 
 oftener does he recount the story 
 of his conversion, and hold him- 
 self up to all ages as a miracle of 
 grace and a monument of Divine 
 mercy. He was very far, there- 
 fore, 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 remem- 
 berine. It had written, as with a 
 pen of steel, lessons of law and 
 love upon the soul of the apostle, 
 and in characters too deep ever to 
 be obliterated. 
 
 What, then, did Paul mean 
 when he here describes himself 
 as " forgetting those things which 
 are behind and reaching forth 
 unto those things which are be- 
 fore"? He meant his language 
 
48 
 
 fozQcttirxQ, anD 
 
 to be understood comparatively 
 and relatively. He was thinking 
 chiefly of the new life which had 
 been opened before him by Jesus 
 Christ, and of the enthusiasm and 
 devotion with which he pursued 
 it. He likens himself to a contest- 
 ant in a foot-race, whose eye is 
 bent on the track before him, not 
 on that behind his back — who is 
 ever measuring in thought the 
 distance yet to be traveled until 
 the prize is won. He meant, 
 therefore, that he was so absorbed 
 in the new pursuits and duties 
 given him by Jesus Christ that 
 his past life was comparatively 
 fororotten. He did not mourn 
 the honors in the Jewisli Church 
 which he had lost by becoming a 
 Christian. He did not dwell upon 
 the anger of his Hebrew friends, 
 
jpresstng ©uwarD. 49 
 
 now that he had the friendship 
 of Christ himself. He did not 
 regret the sacrifice he had made, 
 since a better reward had been 
 bestowed upon him. He did not 
 let past troubles hamper present 
 actions, nor past successes cause 
 him to rest upon his laurels, nor 
 past services satisfy him, nor past 
 losses embitter him. He turned 
 resolutely to the future. He 
 pushed ahead in his divinely 
 appointed way. He let the dead 
 past bury its dead, while he was 
 absorbed in the living present and 
 the coming future. Speaking rel- 
 atively, in comparison with the 
 absorbing business of his life, 
 he could say, " Forgetting those 
 things which are behind and 
 reaching forth unto those things 
 that are before, I press toward the 
 
so ^forgetting, an& 
 
 mark for the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Thus understood, St. Paul's 
 language becomes exceedingly 
 suggestive of things that it is 
 worth our while to forget, and 
 the way in which we should for- 
 get them. Like him, we are not 
 required to blot out the remem- 
 brance of the past. There could 
 be no improvement if we did not 
 remember past mistakes and 
 profit by them. It is often our 
 sweetest joy and highest pride 
 to think of the days that are no 
 more, of the wondrous history of 
 mankind, of our own journey as 
 Providence has led us on, and 
 above all things, of him whom 
 we are to hold in everlasting 
 remembrance. But we must keep 
 life's balance true. Some people 
 
ressing ©uwarD, 51 
 
 are always living among the 
 gravestones, regretting 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 sorrow- 
 ful 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 experi- 
 ence 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 
 
52 
 
 ^forgetting, anb 
 
 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 for- 
 get old doubts and questionings, 
 through absorption in the prac- 
 tical application of the truth 
 brought us by Jesus Christ. 
 Most of the doubts and question- 
 ings which men have on the sub- 
 ject of religion are very old. 
 Their hair is gray with the anx- 
 ious 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 
 
pressing ®nwar&. 53 
 
 that disturb your religious faith 
 and hinder you from the per- 
 formance 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 1 
 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 satisfac- 
 tory answer. 
 
 In like manner the question 
 
54 jforgctting, an& 
 
 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 ingenuit}' and 
 taxed the patience of the Church. 
 It is not peculiar to Calvinism. 
 It is a problem which has ever 
 risen up before inquiring minds 
 and bafifled the wisdom of the 
 greatest who have grappled with 
 it. 
 
 And so. too, most of the specific 
 
pressina ©nwart). 55 
 
 doubts about and objections to 
 Christian doctrine have descended 
 to us from remote generations. 
 Modern philosophy turns out to 
 be only a careful " repietition of 
 speculations which were indulged 
 in by the earliest thinkers. Most 
 of the really important objections 
 to the Bible were raised by the 
 shrewd and. cultured antagonists 
 whom ancient paganism put for- 
 ward as its champions. There 
 can^ scarcely be a new theory de- 
 vised, for th« human mind has 
 long since gone over the whole 
 ground with plowshare and 
 rake. Nothing is more instruct- 
 ive and entertaining to the stu- 
 dent of Christianity than to recog- 
 nize in ancient times the faces 
 with which he is familiar in our 
 day, although they may be dressed 
 
56 
 
 foraettino, anb 
 
 in different clothes and speak 
 another tongue. He will hail 
 them as well-known families, and 
 will return with the conviction 
 that, so far as the religious doubts 
 and questionings of the human 
 mind are concerned, there was 
 some truth in the declaration of 
 Solomon, that there is nothing 
 new under the sun. 
 
 I do not mean to say that prog- 
 ress is not being made in religious 
 thought as well as elsewhere. I 
 think there is. God's truth is 
 being better understood. God's 
 Word is beine read more intelli- 
 gently. Light is falling from 
 many a source and on many a 
 fact. Neither do I mean to say 
 that these old problems should 
 not be considered, if for no other 
 reason than that men may be re- 
 
pressing ©nwart), S7 
 
 minded that some of them are 
 insoluble by us, and that what we 
 do know concerning them may 
 be fairly and wisely stated. But 
 I think it clear that they should 
 not be allowed to burden us nor 
 to keep us back from the perform- 
 ance of practical duty. For, 
 mark you how progress has been 
 made even while these dark ques- 
 tionings remained unsolved. 
 Jesus and the apostles did not 
 attempt to answer these philo- 
 sophical questionings which had 
 been and would be raised by in- 
 quiring minds. They gave us 
 certain positive, practical truths, 
 and told us to test them by actual 
 trial, and obtain the good which 
 they would be sure to bring. 
 Christianity in later years did not 
 triumph by confuting the objec- 
 
58 
 
 fovQctting, an& 
 
 tions raised against it on the part 
 of culture. It answered many of 
 them indeed, but its triumph 
 came from the practical religion 
 which it introduced, and from the 
 effects of faith in Jesus which 
 blessed individuals and society. 
 So, while the human intellect has 
 been wrestling with the giant 
 problem of life, the being of God 
 has silently been established. 
 Overhead has been the battle of 
 the elements, as on earth the 
 quiet growth of the seed of truth 
 which fell from the Master's hand. 
 While the Titans have been war- 
 ring in the air, the power of God's 
 love and the offer of his Gospel 
 have been makinor the world 
 better. The laws of Christ have 
 been closely applied to human 
 conduct ; the beauty and the 
 
ressiug ©nwarD. 59 
 
 majesty of Jesus have won their 
 way to the hearts of millions. 
 Thus progress in righteousness, in 
 the love of God, and in the prac- 
 tical application of the Gospel, 
 has gone forward, while these 
 profound problems have remained, 
 and hover like clouds above the 
 fretful world. 
 
 I judge, therefore, that in view 
 of these facts it is worth our 
 while to forget these doubts and 
 questionings. History has proved 
 that many of them are both hope- 
 lessly dark and have nothing what- 
 ever to do with the attainment of 
 happiness and peace of mind. 
 That they will ever cease to en- 
 gage the attention of some would 
 be too much to believe. Every 
 new generation will undertake the 
 task of settling them. But it will 
 
6o forgetting, an& 
 
 soon be glad to leave the task to 
 generations following. It is, there- 
 fore, not material for a man to 
 consider them. There are things 
 before him which can be done 
 and questionings which can be 
 probably solved. His own per- 
 sonal Christian duty is as clear as 
 sunlight. That Christ is worthy 
 of his following is manifest to 
 every unperverted mind. That 
 men need to have Christ's teach- 
 ings taken home to them, and 
 that man himself needs to prac- 
 tically walk with Christ and do 
 his service, the clear facts demon- 
 strate. It is worth his while to 
 forgfet those doubts and leave 
 those problems unsolved. It is 
 not wise to let them burden him 
 or keep him back from service. 
 Let him leave them behind him. 
 
pressing ®nwar&, 6i 
 
 and bend his strength to the race- 
 track of acknowledged duty, and 
 perhaps when he has reached the 
 goal he may be in fitter condition 
 to deal with them. I am certain 
 that then he will thank God that 
 he did not let them hold him back 
 from the glorious prize. 
 
 II. Again, it is worth our while 
 to forget our trials and sorrows, 
 through absorption in the pleas 
 ure and gains of Christian work. 
 Not everyone by any means can 
 do this. Not a few dwell on the 
 trials they have had, until they 
 become veritable burdens, invisi- 
 bly borne on weary shoulders. 
 Under the palsy of regret, energy 
 for new duties becomes enfeebled. 
 Some are embittered by regret, 
 fretful under the apparently hard 
 ordainments of Providence, carry- 
 
62 forQettino, ant) 
 
 ing within their mind sour 
 thoughts of God and of those 
 who are more fortunate, so that 
 the world grows dark to them, 
 loses its beauty and loveliness, 
 and life ends in welcome death. 
 Others simply grieve, striving to 
 be patient and submissive, but 
 knowing not what balm to apply 
 to their wounds or where to find 
 consolation. Few things are 
 sadder than the spectacle of such 
 cherishers of bitter memories ; and 
 yet how they nurse their regret 
 and attach an almost sacred dig- 
 nity to their sorrows, and refuse 
 to undertake the duties and privi- 
 leges which are before them, as 
 though fettered by the past. 
 
 On the other hand, it is only 
 fair to remark that human nature 
 shows marvelous elasticity and 
 
ressing ©nwarD. 63 
 
 capacity to forget. The really 
 wonderful thing is that men and 
 women are so well able to forget 
 the trials and sorrows through 
 which they pass. When we think 
 how heavy these are in nearly 
 every life — how bitter the part- 
 ings are as we journey along the 
 pathway, how much disappoint- 
 ment and loss there are in the ex- 
 perience of even the more fortu- 
 nate — the marvel is that there are 
 so many happy faces and that the 
 sorrows of humanity are so soon 
 forgotten in the enjoyment of 
 other things. 
 
 As the vegetation soon springs 
 up on the battlefield, as ruined 
 houses are transformed into fer- 
 tile hillocks, and the plain where 
 man and horse rolled in awful 
 carnage becomes ere long the 
 
64 forgetting, anO 
 
 harvest field of the farmer, so the 
 pains and griefs of human life are 
 buried under the new labors and 
 pleasures which beckon to them- 
 selves the human mind. Thank 
 God it is so. He has made us 
 thus elastic and self-governing 
 that we may not be cast down. 
 Otherwise history would stop, 
 and earth become a graveyard ; 
 and the fact that this is part of 
 our natural constitution indicates 
 that it is wise and right to turn 
 from even the keenest trial and 
 the most sacred grief to the sum- 
 mons which the Father brings to 
 us to further work. For it is im- 
 possible to suppose that these evil 
 events are sent to us for their own 
 sake. That would be an out- 
 rageous impugnment of the good- 
 ness and mercy of God, especially 
 
Ipressing ©nwarO. 65 
 
 when he has distinctly declared 
 that he does not willingly afflict 
 or grieve the child of man. They 
 are meant to discipline our souls 
 — -to show us truth more clearly, 
 to open to our minds the realities 
 of life, and to guide us into the 
 ways of thinking and acting which 
 are better than those we followed 
 before. And if so, then they will 
 do their work only when they are 
 themselves relatively forgotten in 
 the new life to which they intro- 
 duce us. 
 
 The gardener prunes the vine 
 that it may bring forth more fruit. 
 He cuts off useless branches that 
 others may replace them, stronger 
 and fresher ; and the pruning is 
 to be forgotten in the ripening 
 clusters that are gathered in con- 
 sequence of it. The gold is re- 
 
66 jforoettina, an& 
 
 fined that the alloy may be dis- 
 engaged from union with the pre- 
 cious metal ; and when the latter 
 is purified, its worth far exceeds 
 the trial through which it had to 
 pass. And who of us cannot 
 glean from our own lives illustra- 
 tions of a like character ? Look- 
 ing back through the mist of years, 
 we can recall the failures that at 
 the time nearly broke our hearts ; 
 losses that nearly crushed us, but 
 which it now requires a positive 
 effort to remember, so completely 
 have they merged into the life for 
 which Providence meant them to 
 qualify us. Those gloomy daj^s 
 were meant to be forgotten. 
 They were meant to merge into 
 a nobler life. They were like the 
 sharp pain of a surgeon's knife — 
 the pain soon passes away, but 
 
presstuQ ©nwarD. 67 
 
 the benefit of it remains. God 
 never meant them to linger as 
 phantoms in our memories, to 
 absorb our thought and claim our 
 sole attention. He meant them 
 to make us patient, and stronger 
 for other tasks, for the doing of 
 which this discipline was re- 
 quired. 
 
 We should be very careful, 
 however, to drown our pains and 
 sorrows not in selfish work and ^ 
 pleasures, but in Christian work 
 and in the joys of Christian serv- 
 ice. Let us use no intoxicating 
 cup to cover with oblivion our 
 troubles and cares. Some plunge 
 even into actual dissipation that , 
 they may kill the sting of mem- 
 ory. Others resort to business 
 and social pleasures. But then 
 the foreetfulness is short-lived and 
 
68 iforgetting, an& 
 
 bitter, and you truly add new- 
 causes for further regret in years 
 to come. It is worth our while 
 to forget our trials and sorrows, 
 if we do so by becoming absorbed 
 in better living and in Christian 
 work. Go out of thyself and 
 serve others. Forget thyself in 
 thinking of thy fellow-men. 
 Reach forth unto the things that 
 are before thee. Help the unfor- 
 tunate. Raise- up; the fallen. 
 Teach the ignorant. Keep thy 
 mind busy with useful thoughts. 
 Give thy brain and hand to use- 
 ful toil. Forget thy own pains 
 and griefs in ministering to those 
 which others have. It will then 
 indeed be worth thy while to dis- 
 miss them from command of thee, 
 for they will never be of so much 
 use as when they thus stimulate 
 
kind and gentle deeds. It is thus 
 that thou wilt " find in loss a gain 
 to match," and rise on " stepping 
 stones of your dead self to higher 
 things." 
 
 III.. So, too, it is worth our 
 while to forget our so-called suc- 
 cesses and our earthly reverses by 
 absorption in those ends of living 
 which Christ has taught us to be 
 really good and great. It was in 
 this sense particularly that St. Paul 
 used our text. The things which 
 he forgot were his noble Jewish 
 birth, his upright training, his suc- 
 cesses and honors in the eyes of 
 his fellow-countrymen. Not even 
 a Roman was prouder of his birth 
 than a Jew was of his. Before 
 that young Jew of Tarsus high 
 honors rose, ready almost to lay 
 themselves at his feet. He at- 
 
70 fovQCttiwQ, auD 
 
 tained the highest culture which 
 his master Gamaliel could give 
 him. The way was open for him to 
 become a noted man in his nation, 
 a leader in Church and State. 
 He valued these things. He did 
 not tosfe them from him without 
 an effort, but he did toss them 
 from him. In the sense in which 
 I have explained it, he forgot 
 them: "What things were gain 
 to me, these have I counted loss 
 for Christ." That he might fol- 
 low the truth and serve the Lord, 
 he turned his mind away from all 
 the honor and gain which the 
 Jewish world could offer him. 
 He did so absolutely. He did 
 not let his mind dwell on the 
 sacrifice which he had made. He 
 did not repine over his loss. He 
 cheerfully and joyfully pursued 
 
pressing ©nwarD* 71 
 
 his way of Christian service, and 
 never allowed himself to be de- 
 terred in it for a moment by any 
 thought of the sacrifices which he 
 had made, rightly thinking that 
 nothing that the whole world could 
 give him was worth comparison 
 with the prize of the high calling 
 of God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Now, certainly it is harder for 
 us to forget the glittering prizes 
 which the world offers us than 
 anything else. It is hard to per- 
 suade ourselves that they are 
 really behind us; that we have 
 left them in the rear and gone on 
 by them to something greater and 
 better. They absorb the energy 
 of most of us, these imaginary 
 piles of glittering dollars that we 
 think we see one day ours, these 
 famous honors in professional or 
 
72 foxQCttirxQ, an& 
 
 public life that we hope one 
 day to have. They are the cor- 
 ruptible crowns for which the 
 majority of men are striving, and 
 which fill the souls of millions 
 with selfish and sordid thoughts. 
 But let the light in on these 
 earthly prizes, and how apt they 
 are to turn out tinsel and brass ! 
 Finery that is quite resplendent 
 by gaslight often appears tawdry 
 and poor in the rays of the morn- 
 inor sun. So when the realities of 
 life are felt by the soul, when the 
 mind's supreme need of truth and 
 of the fellowship with God are 
 realized, then do the dollars and 
 crowns for which this poor world 
 strusfSfles seem mean enouoh to 
 awaken the contempt and even 
 the hatred of those who have 
 been deceived by them. On the 
 
J_ 
 
 i5ressino ©uwart). 73 
 
 other hand, the true life which 
 lesus has revealed will stand the 
 test of the most searching investi- 
 gation : when the blazing light 
 of eternity, falls on it, ^it is still 
 found . to be real gold. The life 
 which follows Christ in doing 
 good, which forsakes its own 
 pleasure at the call of those in 
 need, which loves and works for 
 God — the life which is at harmony 
 with God and at peace with its 
 fellow-men — that life appears more 
 and more beautiful as we try it, 
 and its reward more and more 
 worthy of our toil. 
 
 I say, therefore, that these pal- 
 try things which men call success 
 and honor are worth forgetting, if 
 their place be taken by those ends 
 of living which Christ has taught 
 us to be really great and good. 
 
74 iforaetting, atiD 
 
 We need not fret if we lose them ; 
 we need not care if we never win 
 them. Seeking greater prizes, why 
 should we repine if the baubles 
 and tinsel are not had .? I say to 
 you, forget them. Go higher up. 
 Seek wisdom and righteousness, 
 truth and character. Lay up treas- 
 ures in the heart, and do not be 
 bound and limited by fancied good 
 which, at the longest, will soon 
 fade away. 
 
 IV. Once more, and most 
 earnestly of all, do we say that 
 it is worth our while to forget 
 our old sins and errors, in the 
 joy of that forgiveness which God 
 has provided to every repentant 
 sinner. Forget them? It may 
 be impossible wholly to forget 
 them. The memory of them will 
 stine. Their effects often remain 
 
pressing ©nwarD* 75 
 
 long after they have been for- 
 given. As I have said, Paul did 
 not literally forget them. He 
 mourned over them to the day of 
 his death, and even thought him- 
 self the chief of sinners, because 
 he had persecuted the Church of 
 God. But he did not allow them 
 to trouble him any longer, hein- 
 ous though his sins had been, for 
 God's forgiveness of the repent- 
 ant sinner is full and complete. 
 He does not receive us on pro- 
 bation. He does not promise 
 forgiveness hereafter. He offers 
 it now. " Though your sins be 
 as scarlet, they shall be as white 
 as snow." He welcomes every 
 penitent as the father of the 
 prodigal did his wandering boy, 
 stopping his confession with the 
 kiss of love and saying, " This my 
 
76 yoTQettina, anC> 
 
 son was dead, and is alive again." 
 He forgives and forgets. He 
 bears no anger. He keeps no 
 malice. He blots out the record 
 of our misdeeds. He covers it 
 with the merits of his blessed 
 Son. 
 
 Surely, then, it is worth our 
 while to forget them also. We 
 need not be burdened with them. 
 So long as we have not repented 
 of them, we may well be crushed 
 under their load ; but when we 
 have cast them upon God, we are 
 forever free. Let them go down 
 into the pit of eternal oblivion. 
 Let there be no phantom rising 
 from the grave of buried sins 
 to affritrht us. Lookinor to the 
 • Christ, their power is all gone. 
 Oh, what a relief this is ! See 
 how men are driven b) an accus- 
 
 I 
 
pressing ©uwarD. 77 
 
 inor conscience — lonorina- for de- 
 liverance from themselves, since 
 in themselves they carry the ex- 
 ecutioner of broken law. Hear 
 them crying out for waters of 
 Lethe to drown the sting of 
 memory. Again see them court- 
 ing death in the vain hope of 
 finding deliverance from their 
 shame. But death will brine no 
 deliverance to the impenitent. 
 Behold Divesv "Son, remember!" 
 There are no waters of Lethe. 
 There is only one way of secur- 
 ing peace and forgetfulness — con- 
 fession, repentance, and faith in 
 Jesus Christ. Then we may for- 
 Q;et our sins and errors. Over 
 them is sprinkled the atoning 
 blood. Justice is satisfied; and 
 forgetting the things which are 
 behind, reaching forth for the 
 
78 jfcrgetting, anO 
 
 things which are before, we may 
 with elastic step and happy hearts 
 press toward the mark for the 
 prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 There are, then, some things 
 worth forgetting. It is not wise 
 nor right to be forever halting 
 under the bondage of that which 
 Jesus Christ came to destroy. In 
 , order that we may rise to a higher 
 life we must forget the lower. 
 Why should we be forever killing: 
 foes that are already dead, cling- 
 ing to the memories of things 
 whose purpose has been served, 
 dallying with toys when time has 
 brought greater prizes to contend 
 for, and eroaninof under sins 
 for which Christ has brought 
 redemption ? No, let us believe 
 and go forward. The future will 
 
{pressing ©nwar&. 79 
 
 be better than the past. The 
 way is open ; on to attainment ! 
 forward to the victory ! Make 
 Jesus Christ your Saviour. Take 
 him altooether, and for all he is. 
 Then will the glorious life and 
 joy into which he leads us swallow 
 up the doubts and fears and sins 
 of former days. These will be 
 forgotten in the enjoyment of 
 God's loving mercy and guiding 
 hand. I plead with you to take 
 these truths to heart. Turn your 
 face heavenward. Go forward to 
 the Promised Land. Break your 
 fetters and live for the new things 
 which God hath prepared for 
 those that love him. 
 

 
 ••UNTIL THE DAY DAW'N'.- 
 
 1 
 
 A -" AVI - - ^ ; - : 
 
 T-£ evtn-i.. itT is 
 
 I:., :.- --.':: - 
 
 • - -15 : t-:r; 
 
 ---'- — 7=- ^ ■ ■ 
 
 
 bdgfats. 
 
 -^* -_ — r z^;.rr_ 
 
 Thedaj :ipi..^t,. 
 
 :- i- ; :-f'r?f vigor. 
 
 The darofiricT 
 
 C "- - - • 
 
 - : ; r ?f the 
 
 
 
*• The things which are not seen are eternal." 
 -I Corinthians 4: 18. 
 
' ' UNTIL THE DAY DAWN. " 
 
 Awake, ray soul! The eternal day is 
 breaking, 
 The darkness of the world is pierced 
 with lights, 
 And rays, prophetic of the morn's 
 arising. 
 Already gleam far up the eastern 
 heights. 
 
 The day of painless life and tireless vigor. 
 The day of widening knowledge of the 
 best. 
 The day when earth's deceits and adum- 
 brations 
 Shall change into the truth in glory 
 dressed. 
 
84 ''Xllntil tbe 5)as Dawn/* 
 
 O soul of mine, let not dull sleep 
 bewitch thee; 
 Let not the gilded fantasies of sense 
 Cause thee to slumber when heaven's 
 light is shining, 
 And God's dear voice is summoning 
 thee hence. 
 
 Thine earthlj' life is but a preparation 
 For grander toil and never-ending joys. 
 Thou wast not meant to find it satisfac- 
 tory, 
 Its keenest sorrows are its broken 
 toys. 
 
 Already has thine opening eye caught 
 vision 
 Of things more real, of gladness more 
 profound, 
 When, through the rupture of this earth's 
 relations. 
 The voice of God and truth has uttered 
 sound. 
 
 Then bend thy gaze to the predestined 
 future, 
 Anticipate the life that draweth nigh; 
 
''UlntU tbe 2)ai? Dawn." 85 
 
 Awake, my soul, and contemplate the 
 portion 
 Of those whose lot is fixed with Christ 
 on high. 
 
 Think of the seed that bloometh into 
 flower; 
 Think of the thought that shapes itself 
 in deed; 
 Think of the chaos ordered into beauty; 
 Think of the Child that for the world 
 did bleed. 
 
 Mark what portentous prophecies of 
 power 
 All these suggest as thine intended 
 goal. 
 When day, now breaking, shall at last 
 be entered 
 And the grand promise shall itself 
 unroll. 
 
 Soul! let the voice of Christ, thy sure 
 Forerunner, 
 Summon thee now into the heavenly 
 life. 
 
86 ''Xllntil tbe Bay S)a\vu." 
 
 Soon shall the brightness of the day flow 
 o'er thee, 
 Soon peace shall end thy bitter earthly 
 strife. 
 
 Thine are these mansions; thine the 
 Father's bosom; 
 Thine the high paths that sinless feet 
 have trod. 
 Thine is to be the light that faileth 
 never, 
 The endless life of fellowship with 
 God. 
 
 December 29, 1895. 
 
THE TEACHER AND 
 PASTOR. 
 
 From President F. L. Patton's address at the 
 funeral of Dr. Purves. 
 
 We all felt the terrible shock when 
 word came to us on Wednesday morning 
 that Dr. Purves had died suddenly the 
 night before. We knew that he was suf- 
 fering under an acute attack and that 
 in recent months he had been subject to 
 such attacks, but we did not suppose 
 that his illness was of a nature that was 
 likely to prove fatal. 
 
 This congregation, the First Presby- 
 terian Church of Princeton, the Prince- 
 ton Theological Seminary, and Princeton 
 University have sustained a great loss. 
 All connected with these institutions 
 feel that they have suffered a personal 
 bereavement, for Dr. Purves had a 
 singular power of laying hold upon 
 
88 Ube 'Q;eacber anC) ipastoc» 
 
 the affections of those to whom he stood 
 related. 
 
 We admired him as a preacher and as a 
 teacher. We were impressed with his 
 goodness and with the genuineness of 
 his religious life, but, be3^ond all that, 
 we loved him as a man. The story of 
 his life is familiar to us all. He was 
 born in the city of Philadelphia on the 
 27th of February, 1852. After gradu- 
 ating at the University of Pennsylvania, 
 he entered Princeton Theological Semi- 
 nary, remaining there after the comple- 
 tion of his curriculum for a year of grad- 
 uate study. 
 
 It was during this year in Princeton 
 that he came under the quickening in- 
 fluence of his great friend and teacher, 
 the beloved Dr. Caspar Wistar Hodge, 
 and that he acquired that taste for New 
 Testament study which he so assiduously 
 cultivated during his two pastorates in 
 Baltimore and Pittsburg, and which 
 ended in his being the unanimous choice 
 of the directors of the Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary as the successor of Dr. 
 Hodge. 
 
Ubc Ueacber anD ipastor. 89 
 
 It was a matter of great doubt to him 
 and to his friends whether he should give 
 up the pulpit to take the professor's 
 chair, for he had singular qualifications 
 for both positions. He was an eloquent 
 preacher, and his services were especially 
 acceptable to young men, who came in 
 throngs to hear him on Sunday evenings. 
 
 He also had special qualifications as 
 a teacher. He was a ripe scholar, and 
 what was a very important factor in the 
 case, he knew, as few men know, how to 
 show the bearing of accurate, minute 
 exegetical study of the Bible to the ser- 
 vice of the pulpit. These facts, added 
 to his warmth of temperament, gave 
 him great facility in dealing with theo- 
 logical students. 
 
 None who had the privilege of being 
 his pupil will ever forget his hospitality. 
 His house was their home, and they were 
 always welcomed to his table. Many a 
 young minister in the service of the 
 church to-day will recall his relations to 
 Dr. Purves, and the hospitality of his 
 home, as the brightest memory of his 
 seminary days. 
 
90 XTbe TIeacber anC> jpastor* 
 
 It is rare that we find a man equally 
 capable to do the work of the pulpit and 
 the professor's chair. And while each 
 sphere furnishes ample opportunities for 
 anyone, still, in rare cases, it is perhaps 
 well to allow those who are fitted to do 
 so to fill both positions. When, there- 
 fore. Dr. Purves, as stated supply to the 
 First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, 
 and afterwards its pastor, added the 
 duties of the pulpit to those of his pro- 
 fessorship, it was felt to be advantageous 
 to the best interests of all concerned. 
 
 During his life in Princeton he had 
 frequent invitations from prominent 
 churches to become their pastor, but he 
 declined. Through all, I believe, he felt 
 that his heart was in the work of his 
 chair, and that with a dual position of 
 pastor and professor, he had the widest 
 scope for the exercise of his best powers, 
 and the fullest opportunity for the reali- 
 zation of his highest ambitions. I think 
 I do not misrepresent him when I say it. 
 But when the pulpit of this church be- 
 came vacant, the eyes of the congregra- 
 tion turned to him. Occupying a fore- 
 
XTbe Ueacber auD pastor* 91 
 
 most place in the denomination to which 
 it belongs, it called for a strong man 
 who could administer with great ability 
 its affairs and maintain the high standard 
 of spiritual preaching set by Dr. James 
 W, Alexander, Dr. Rice, and Dr. Hall. 
 
 You made no mistake, my dear friends, 
 when you felt that the one man to fill 
 this vacant place in the American pulpit, 
 and to be added to his great succession, 
 was Dr. Purves. We were loath to have 
 him leave Princeton, and there were 
 some, perhaps, who were never satisfied 
 respecting the wisdom of his decision, 
 but most of us thought that the interests 
 of the Church at large transcended all 
 local interests, and that they would be 
 best subserved by his acceptance of its 
 call. He entered upon the duties here 
 with enthusiasm. His heart and his 
 head were enlisted to their utmost efforts 
 in the work of this church, and he soon 
 found himself absorbed in the many reli- 
 gious and philanthropic enterprises that 
 consume the time and exhaust the energy 
 of ministers of large churches in great 
 cities. I do not think he worked harder 
 
92 Jibe XTeacber ant) {pastor. 
 
 in New York than he did in Princeton, 
 for Dr. Purves was a man who did with 
 all his might what his hands found to do. 
 One rarely finds a man with such 
 capacity for hard work and varied work. 
 When he sustained the dual relation of 
 pastor and professor in Princeton, he 
 never allowed the duties of one sphere 
 of labor to be an excuse for slighting the 
 other sphere of labor. He was always 
 up to date in the literature of his depart- 
 ment, notwithstanding the exacting calls 
 of his parish. Nor did he find an easy 
 mode of preparation for the pulpit by 
 giving his theological lectures a homi- 
 letical form. Indeed I sometimes thought 
 it would have been well if he had brought 
 some of his New Testament studies into 
 the pulpit. This was Dr. Hodge's method, 
 and his sermons were all studies in bibli- 
 cal theology; but I3r. Purves, though al- 
 ways a preacher to whom theological 
 students listened with delight for hours, 
 was not distinctively a preacher to theo- 
 logical students. He was very compre- 
 hensive and varied in his range of topics 
 for the pulpit, and was equally accept- 
 
XTbe Ueacber ant) pastor. 93 
 
 able to the undergraduates of the uni- 
 versity and to the men and women who 
 constitute the congregations of great 
 cities. 
 
 We cannot understand Dr. Purves as 
 a preacher or as teacher unless we know 
 him as a man. He had a warm heart; he 
 had a keen eye, a good memory for names 
 and faces. He seemed to know more 
 people in Princeton than anyone else. 
 He never loitered or dreamed; he was 
 alert, active, energetic, interested in all 
 good work. The movements of his mind, 
 like those of his body, were quick. He 
 was religious without being austere, just 
 as he was companionable without being 
 worldly. He touched human life at a 
 great many points. As a New Testa- 
 ment specialist, it was his business to be 
 familiar with the literature and progressof 
 the Apostolic period. How much he had 
 made himself master of that period his 
 "Apostolic Age "* will testify. But he 
 had a wider range of thought than that. I 
 have heard him preach Thanksgiving ser- 
 mons that involved much thought, the re- 
 * Apostolic Age. Scribner's, 1900. 
 
94 Xibe ^eacber ant) pastor. 
 
 suit of much reading and clear thinking 
 upon political science. While he was far 
 from being disposed to allow sociology to 
 supersede theology, yet he recognized 
 that the Gospel had great bearing on 
 social questions, and he was deeply in- 
 terested in all sociological movements. 
 
 But when we judge him as a teacher, 
 we must judge him rather by his influ- 
 ence upon the minds of his pupils than 
 by the products of his pen, scholarly and 
 creditable as they always were. For in 
 a department that is so full of activity 
 as that of New Testament literature, it 
 is only by incessant study that one can 
 do much original work. 
 
 A great teacher cannot always be an 
 author, and a great author is not always 
 the best teacher. Ur. Purves, as all his 
 students will testify, was a great teacher, 
 and by common consent he held, and is 
 recognized as having held, a foremost 
 place in the American pulpit. He was 
 not a controversial preacher. He was 
 not a theological preacher. He was not 
 a literary preacher, though he had com- 
 mand of a finished style. Philosophy 
 
r 
 
 Ubc Ueacber auD ipastor. 95 
 
 had little place in his sermons, and he 
 made no use of the sensational topics of 
 the day. He' was eloquent rather than 
 brilliant. His sermons were always 
 spiritual. They were compactly, sys- 
 tematically organized, with no parade of 
 logic. Of no one could it be more 
 truly said than of him, that his coming 
 among you was not with the wisdom of 
 enticing words of man's pleasing, but in 
 demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 
 and that he determined to know nothing 
 among you save Jesus Christ a nd him 
 crucified. He was not ashamed of the 
 Gospel of Christ, believing it to be the 
 power of God and the wisdom of God 
 unto salvation. 
 
 I have spoken of Dr. Purves as I knew 
 him. I have spoken of him in reference 
 to his wide relations, because I believe 
 that he belongs to the church at large, 
 but I do not forget that the special 
 grief of this occasion falls upon this 
 bereaved congregation. He was a great 
 preacher, but he was more than that, he 
 was a great pastor. How comforting he 
 was to the bereaved; how prompt he was 
 
96 XTbe Zleacber ant> pastor. 
 
 to visit the sick; how uplifting and ten- 
 der his prayers; how precious the com- 
 munion seasons which you and I and 
 others in Princeton and elsewhere have 
 enjoyed under his ministrations! 
 
 There are men who are great in the 
 pulpit, but who find the obligations of 
 the pulpit are such that they leave them 
 no time for pastoral visitation. There 
 are men who are great in other spheres 
 who give their best efforts to the reviews 
 and journals, and give what time is left 
 to the pulpit. Dr. Purves gave his best 
 to his congregation — heart and soul and 
 spirit he gave to them. 
 
 And now that he is gone, it is with a 
 full consciousness of our loss that we 
 mourn him. The loss is ours, not his. 
 Our hearts bleed for those who are left 
 behind. We raise anxious questions, 
 when men like him are called away, as to 
 who shall fill the vacant place. But we 
 do not murmur. For him to live was 
 Christ and to die was gain. 
 

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