Such a feeling once harboured in the breast, and thus interpreted, soon begins to deaden our spiritual energies. We cease to be holy as soon as we fancy ourselves holy. We relinquish effort as soon as we find that we have been using it. In the remembrance of the past, in the spiritual pride which it produces, we forget the future and unlearn humility. Therefore we are to forget the past of progress. But, besides this, we are to forget what is behind of failure and trial, and former superiority. There is nothing so apt to beget despondency, to discourage further effort, as the review of unsuccess: “I have tried this before, and failed; it is of no use to try it again. Destiny, or innate corruption seems to thwart me and bind me down; it is vain to contend against it.” Thus it is that men persuade themselves to yield unresistingly to evil. When bidden to forsake it, when desiring to forsake it, instead of making the effort as though it were a first one, the beginning of a right course, in which, if they persevere, they may hope by GOD’S grace to do well, they recall to memory how they have failed before, and persuade themselves, from their remembrance, that in like manner they should surely fail again: and so they refuse to try. And so, too, the remembrance of former superiority discourages. “How pure, how temperate, how steady, how comparatively good was I once. Alas! that cannot be again. I cannot undo what I have done. I cannot recover what is lost. The past can never be the present.” No, it cannot, brethren, and therefore forget it. Do not seek to undo, to recover. Since that cannot be, aim at something else; and, that you may aim the more steadily, do not let your eye wander elsewhere. If you have left your father’s house, and wasted your substance in riotous living, it is too late to prevent you from being a prodigal; but it is not too late to become a returning prodigal. Forget your former independence; forget the going away into the far country. Remember, that your Father still lives; that He is a merciful, a pardoning Father; that His arms are spread out to enfold you; that there is still room, and welcome room, for you in His house. Forget what you have abandoned, and seek what you may yet have: not former innocence, not the inheritance of uninterrupted dutifulness, but reformed life, and fresh favour, a new place as a new character.