Forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forward to those which are before, how eagerly he presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus! With our apostle this is a favorite illustration of the Christian life--its steady aim, its strenuous action, its habitual self-denial, and patient endurance to the end. "Know ye not," he writes to the Corinthians, "that they who run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain.... They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." And in the Epistle to the Hebrews we read: "Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and run with patience the race that is set before us." So all Christians must run, never pausing in their progress, nor for a moment relaxing their energies, till from the goal they can look back and say--"I have finished my course." "I have kept the faith." Here seems to be a reference to the strict rules and rigid discipline to be observed in both these methods of competition. In the arena and on the _stadium_ every thing was duly ordered and prescribed, nothing left to chance or choice, and he that strove for the mastery was not crowned except he strove lawfully. In the race, there must be no deviation from the line marked out for the runner; in the combat, no unfairness nor violation of the rules. "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly," saith the apostle; "so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest after having preached to others I myself should be rejected." "Would you obtain a prize in the Olympic games?" said a pagan philosopher. "A noble design! But consider the requirements and the consequences. You must live by rule; you must eat when you are not hungry; you must abstain from agreeable food; you must habituate yourself to suffer cold and heat; in one word, you must surrender yourself in all things to the guidance of a physician." "The just shall live by his faith." Without adherence to this rule, there is no reward. "The life which I live in the flesh," saith St. Paul, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." It is faith that strengthens the Christian _agonisti_ with might in the inner man. It is faith that unites the soul to Christ, and overcomes the world. The shipwreck of faith is the shipwreck also of a good conscience. Keep the faith, and it will keep you. St. Paul kept it, and triumphed in martyrdom. The third thing here to be noted is the apostle's joyful foresight of his glorious coronation: "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."