Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-01-10

THE THINGS BEHIND AND THE THINGS
BEFORE
BY MRS. I


BEFORE
WITH the closing of one year and the
w beginning Of another it is profitable
to recall the words Of st. Paul to the
Philippians: Forgetting those things which
are behind, and reaching forth unto these
things which are before, | press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God
in Christ Jesus" philippians iii:1314)
Behind each Of us there is an irreparable
past.
fundamentally valuable-has passed
never to return. Other days may come to us,
but those behind US are gone forever. OF
Lost! lost! lost
| feel all search is vain
That gem of countless cost
Can neer be mine again
l offer no reward
For till these heartstrings sever
know that heayen-intrusted gift
Is reft away forever"
The past is Interchangeable. God Himself
cannot make it different from what it is.
Our yesterdays came to us out of eternity,
and into eternity they have disappeared.
And with them golden opportunities have
eparted-oprortunities unlike any which
preceded them and any that can ever follow
them. They called us to nobler living and to
higher service, but their solemn voices have
died away in the distance so that we can
hear them no more though we should live and
cry after them through a thousand regretful
years.
But true as these reflections are, and pain
full true, such thoughts may become a
snare to the soul. However Iamentable our
past may be, it should not be brooded over
The great preacher of Brighton, Rev. Fred
erich W. Robertson, speaks most wisely con-
corning this subject, when he says.
under no conceivable act of circumstances
are we justified in sitting,
by the poisoned springs of life waiting
for the morrow which shall free us from the
strife.
under no circumstances whether of pain
or grief or disappointment, or trreparable
mistake, can it be true that there is not
something to be done, as we'll as something
to be suffered. And thus it is that Christiain-
ity draws over our life not 1eaden cloud
of remorse and dependency. but a sky-not
perhaps of radiant, but yet of most serene and
chastened and manly hope. There is a past
which is gone forever, but there is a future
which is still our own
No man was ever better prepared than ne
to speak with sincerity and wisdom on the
subject Poignant sorrows, i'll health hui
initiating disappointments and tragic be-
trayals filled the sad days of his too shorC
l1fe, which lasted no more than thirty-seven
years. Above all these melancholy conG1-
lions he rose on buoyant wings of faith and
hope, and, when he died of tuberculosis IN
1858, there was not in all Great Britain
messenger of Christ more reyered and loveG
than was he, nor one who had wrought
more effectively in the service of his Lord.
His heart was so fixed the higher ends
before him and the heavenly life above him
that there was in it no room for fruitless
repining
The same was true of st. Paul, the great
apostle to the Gentiles. He wrote most
truly to the Philippians that he had "suf-
fered the loss of all things that he. might
win Christ" and in his second epistle to the
Corinthians he gave somewhat in detail the
losses which he had incurred and the hard
ships which he had endured He told them
how he had been Gin labors more abund-
ant, in stripes above measure, in prisons
more frequent, in deaths Oft Of the Jews
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was l
stoned, thrice 1 suffered shipwreck, a night
and day | have been in the deep in jour
neyings often, in perils of waters in perils
of robbers, in perls by mine own country.
men, in perils in the city, in perls in the
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren; in WEAKNESS and
in watchings often, in fast
ings often, in cold and nakedness" I'll
Corinthians Xi:23-27.)
Between the date Of this letter to the
Corinthians and that of his Epistle to the
Philippians he suffered even more and deep
err distresses. But all these sorrowful things
Of the past, together with his own imper-
fections, he resOlutey proposed to forget
while he pressed toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus"
The figure which the apostle employs to