then? Let us not cease to ask the question, until we can say, "Thy aim, O Lord, is my aim, and I press toward the mark," the only mark which will make life noble, elastic, stable, and blessed, that I "may be found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness, but that which is of God by faith." For this we have all been made, guided, redeemed. If we carry this treasure out of life we shall carry all that is worth carrying. If we fail in this we fail altogether, whatever be our so-called success. There is one mark, one only, and every arrow that does not hit that target is wasted and spent in vain.

II. Secondly, let me say, concentrate all effort on this one aim.

This one thing I do," says the Apostle, "I press toward the mark." That aim is the one which God has in view in all circumstances and arrangements. Therefore, obviously, it is one which may be pursued in all of these, and may be sought whatsoever we are doing. All occupations, except only sin, are consistent with this highest aim. It needs not that we should seek any remote or cloistered form of life, nor shear off any legitimate and common interests, but in them all we may be seeking for the one thing, the moulding of our characters into the shapes that are pleasing to Him. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life"; wherever the outward days of my life may be passed. Whatever we are doing, in business, in shop, at a study table, in the kitchen, in the nursery, by the road, in the house, we may still have the supreme aim in view, that from all our work

there may come growth in character and in likeness to Jesus Christ.

Only, to keep this supreme aim clear, there will be required far more frequent and resolute effort for what the old mystics used to call "recollection" than we are accustomed to put forth. It is hard, amidst the din of business, and whilst yielding to other lower, legitimate impulses and motives, to set this supreme one high above them all. But it is possible, if only we will do two things, keep ourselves close to God, and be prepared to surrender much, laying our own wills, our own fancies, purposes, eager hopes and plans in His hands, and asking Him to help us, that we may never lose sight of the harbour light, because of any tossing waves that rise between us and it, nor may ever be so swallowed up in ends, which are only means after all, as to lose sight of the only end which is an end in itself. But for the attainment of this aim in any measure, the concentration of all our powers upon it is absolutely needful. If you want to bore a hole you take a sharp point; you can do nothing with a blunt one. Every flight of wild ducks in the sky will tell you the form that is most likely to secure the maximum of motion with the minimum of effort. The wedge is that which pierces through all the loosely-compacted textures against which it is pressed. Roman strategy forced the way of the legion through loose-ordered ranks of barbarian foes by arraying it in that wedgelike form. So we, if we are to advance, must gather ourselves together and put a point upon our lives by compaction and concentration of effort and energy on the one purpose. The conquering word is, "This one thing I do." The

difference between the amateur and the artist is that the one pursues an art 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 fits 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 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, trade and profession, study and business, 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 think

ing 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, 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. Let us remember where we were foiled, in order that we may be the more careful of that place hereafter. If we know that upon any road we fell into ambushes, "not once nor twice," like the old king of Israel, we should guard ourselves against passing by that road again. He who has not learned, by the memory of his past failures, humility and wise government of his life, and wise avoidance of places where he is weak, is an incurable fool.

But let us forget our failures, in so far as these might paralyze our hopes, or make us fancy that future success is impossible where past failures frown. Ebenezer was a field of defeat before it rang with the hymns of victory. And there is no place in your past life where you have been shamefully baffled and beaten, but there, and in that, you may yet be victori

ous. Never let the past limit your hopes of the possibilities; nor your confidence in the certainties and victories, of the future. And if ever you are tempted to say to yourselves, "I have tried it so often, and so often failed, that it is no use trying any more; I am beaten and I throw up the sponge," remember Paul's wise exhortation, and "forgetting the things that are behind press toward the mark.”

In like manner I would say, remember and yet forget past successes and achievements. Remember them for thankfulness, remember them for hope, remember them for counsel and instruction, but forget them when they tend, as all that we accomplish does tend, to make us fancy that little more remains to be done; and forget them when they tend, as all that we accomplish ever does tend, to make us think that such and such things are our line, and of other virtues and graces and achievements of culture and of character, that these are not our line, and not to be won by us.

Our line!" Astronomers take a thin thread from a spider's web and stretch it across their object-glasses to measure stellar magnitudes. Just as is the spider's line in comparison with the whole shining surface of the sun across which it is stretched, so is what we have already attained to the boundless might and glory of that to which we may come. Nothing short of the full measure of the likeness of Jesus Christ is the measure of our possibilities.

There is a mannerism in Christian life, as there is in everything else, which is to be avoided, if we would grow into perfection. There was a great artist in a past century who never could paint a picture without