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the best general who makes the fewest false steps. Poor mediocrity may secure that; but he is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes. Forget mistakes: organize victory out of mistakes.

Finally; past guilt lies behind us, and is well forgot ten. There is a way in which even sin may be banished from the memory. If a man looks forward to the evil he is going to commit, and satisfies himself that it is inevitable, and so treats it lightly, he is acting as a fatalist. But, if a man partially does this, looking backward, feeling that sin when it is past has become part of the history of God's universe, and is not to be wept over forever, he only does that which the Giver of the Gospel permits him to do. Bad as the results have been in the world of making light of sin, those of brooding over it too much have been worse. Remorse has done more harm than even hardihood. It was re

morse which fixed Judas in an unalterable destiny; it was remorse which filled the monasteries for ages with men and women whose lives became useless to their fellow-creatures. It is remorse which so remembers bygone faults as to paralyze the energies for doing Christ's work; for when you break a Christian's spirit, it is all over with progress. O, we want everything that is hopeful and encouraging for our work, for God knows it is not an easy one! And therefore it is that the Gospel comes to the guiltiest of us all, at the very outset, with the inspiring news of pardon. You remember how Christ treated sin. Sin of oppression and hypoc risy indignantly; but sin of frailty" Hath no man condemned thee?No man, Lord." Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more."" As if he would

bid us think more of what we may be than of what we have been. There was the wisdom of life in the proverb with which the widow of Tekoah pleaded for the res toration of Absalom from banishment before David. Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Well, Amnon was dead before his time; but the severity of revenge could never bring him back again. "We must all die,” said the wise woman, "and are as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." Christian brethren, do not stop too long to weep over spilt water. Forget your guilt, and wait to see what Eternity has to say to it. You have other work to do now.

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So let us work out the spirit of the apostle's plan. Innocence, youth, success, error, guilt-let us forget them all.

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Not backward are our glances bent,

But onwards to our Father's home

In conclusion, remember Christian progress is only possible in Christ. It is a very lofty thing to be a Christian; for a Christian is a man who is restoring God's likeness to his character; and therefore the apostle calls it here a high calling. High as heaven is the calling wherewith we are called. But this very height makes it seem impracticable. It is natural to say, All that was well enough for one so transcendently gifted as Paul to hope for; but I am no gifted man; I have no iron strength of mind; I have no sanguine hopeful ness of character; I am disposed to look on the dark side of things; I am undetermined, weak, vacillating; and then I have a whole army of passions and follies

to contend with. We have to remind such men of one thing they have forgotten. It is the high calling of

God, if you will; but it is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. What the world calls virtue is a name and dream without Christ. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Re deemer's cross, and in the power of his Resurrection. First let a man know that all his past is wrong and sinful; then let him fix his eye on the love of God in Christ loving him,—even him, the guilty one. Is there no strength in that? no power in the knowledge that all that is gone by is gone, and that a fresh, clear future is open? It is not the progress of virtue that God asks for, but progress in saintliness, empowered by hope and love.

Lastly, let each man put this question to himself, "Dare I look on?" With an earnest Christian, it is "reaching forth to those things which are before." Progress ever. And then, just as we go to rest in this world tired, and wake up fresh and vigorous in the morning, so does the Christian go to sleep in the world's night, weary with the work of life, and then, on the resurrection day, he wakes in his second and his brighter morning. It is well for a believer to look on. Dare you? Remember, out of Christ, it is not wisdom, but madness, to look on. You must look back, for the longest and the best day is either past or passing. will be winter soon, desolate, uncheered, hopeless winter, old age, with its dreariness and its disappointment, and its querulous broken-heartedness; and there is no second spring for you, no resurrection morning of blessedness to dawn on the darkness of your grave. God has only one method of salvation, the Cross of Christ. God can have only one; for the Cross of Christ means death to evil, life to good

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There is no other way to salvation but that, for that in itself is, and alone is, salvation. Out of Christ, therefore, it is woe to the man who reaches forth to the things which are before. To such I say,- My unhappy brethren, Omnipotence itself cannot change the darkness of your destiny.

V.

[Preached October 20, 1850.]

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. - ZACCHEUS.

LUKE XIX. 8. -" And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold."

THERE are persons to whom a religious life seems smooth and easy. Gifted by God constitutionally

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with a freedom from those inclinations which in other men are tyrannous and irresistible, endued with those aspirations which other men seem to lack, — it appears as if they were born saints.

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There are others to whom it is all a trial, a whole world of passions keep up strife within. The name of the Spirit which possesses them is Legion. It is hard fight from the cradle to the grave,-up-hill work,

toil all the way; and at the last it seems as if they had only just kept their ground.

There are circumstances which seem as if intended as a very hot-bed for the culture of religious principle, in which the difficulty appears to be to escape being religious.

There are others in which religious life seems im possible. For the soul, tested by temptation, is like iron tried by weights. No iron bar is absolutely in

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