George Tybout Purves

“ There are, then, some things worth forgetting. It is not wise nor right to be forever halting under the bondage of that which Jesus Christ came to destroy. In order that we may rise to a higher life we must forget the lower. Why should we be forever killing foes that are already dead, clinging to the memories of things whose purpose has been served, dallying with toys when time has brought greater prizes to contend for, and groaning under sins for which Christ has brought redemption? No, let us believe and go forward. The future will be better than the past. ”

“ When love exists between two persons, the will of one it is the other's joy to do, if possible. Love impels to its accomplishment. Love rejoices in being of service, in giving the loved one pleasure, in carrying out the other's desire. So the will of God was, to Christ, his Father's wish. Obedience was the mainspring of his soul's life, and his errand in the world derived its sanctity and its glory—in spite of man's antagonism and in spite of apparent fruitlessness—from the fact that it was the will of God. ”

“ Not a few dwell on the trials they have had, until they become veritable burdens, invisibly borne on weary shoulders. Under the palsy of regret, energy for new duties becomes enfeebled. Some are embittered by regret, fretful under the apparently hard ordainments of Providence, carrying within their mind sour thoughts of God and of those who are more fortunate, so that the world grows dark to them, loses its beauty and loveliness, and life ends in welcome death. ”

“ It answered many of them indeed, but its triumph came from the practical religion which it introduced, and from the effects of faith in Jesus which blessed individuals and society. So, while the human intellect has been wrestling with the giant problem of life, the being of God has silently been established. Overhead has been the battle of the elements, as on earth the quiet growth of the seed of truth which fell from the Master's hand. While the Titans have been warring in the air, the power of God's love and the offer of his Gospel have been making the world better. ”

“ No later fame or success, no gaudy robes of human praise, no gilded crown of human admiration, are needed to adorn him. He discloses the very ideal of a godly life. All our poor efforts at obedience, all our faint aspirations after the knowledge and love of God, all our unfulfilled prayers, and falling flights, and unredeemed promises and sin-stained attempts to serve, confess the ideal perfectness of him who could truthfully say, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." ”

“ I answer therefore, finally, that we may, like Christ, rejoice to do his will as revealed in providence. I have tried to show that even Christ followed where the Father led, embraced opportunities, met new circumstances, prepared for "the hour." And certainly we are to do so. The will of God for each one of us is unfolded by the events of life. These are not causeless. They are not a chance medley of good and bad. God rules: not a sparrow falls without him. And therefore, as providence unrolls the will of God for us, the true child is to accept and obey. ”

“ So when the realities of life are felt by the soul, when the mind's supreme need of truth and of the fellowship with God are realized, then do the dollars and crowns for which this poor world struggles seem mean enough to awaken the contempt and even the hatred of those who have been deceived by them. On the other hand, the true life which Jesus has revealed will stand the test of the most searching investigation: when the blazing light of eternity falls on it, it is still found to be real gold. ”

“ I say, therefore, that these paltry things which men call success and honor are worth forgetting, if their place be taken by those ends of living which Christ has taught us to be really great and good. We need not fret if we lose them; we need not care if we never win them. Seeking greater prizes, why should we repine if the baubles and tinsel are not had? I say to you, forget them. Go higher up. Seek wisdom and righteousness, truth and character. Lay up treasures in the heart, and do not be bound and limited by fancied good which, at the longest, will soon fade away. ”

“ Paul's language becomes exceedingly suggestive of things that it is worth our while to forget, and the way in which we should forget them. Like him, we are not required to blot out the remembrance of the past. There could be no improvement if we did not remember past mistakes and profit by them. It is often our sweetest joy and highest pride to think of the days that are no more, of the wondrous history of mankind, of our own journey as Providence has led us on, and above all things, of him whom we are to hold in everlasting remembrance. ”

“ A great teacher cannot always be an author, and a great author is not always the best teacher. Dr. Purves, as all his students will testify, was a great teacher, and by common consent he held, and is recognized as having held, a foremost place in the American pulpit. He was not a controversial preacher. He was not a theological preacher. He was not a literary preacher, though he had command of a finished style. Philosophy had little place in his sermons, and he made no use of the sensational topics of the day. ”

“ Let there be no phantom rising from the grave of buried sins to affright us. Looking to the Christ, their power is all gone. Oh, what a relief this is! See how men are driven by an accusing conscience—longing for deliverance from themselves, since in themselves they carry the executioner of broken law. Hear them crying out for waters of Lethe to drown the sting of memory. Again see them courting death in the vain hope of finding deliverance from their shame. ”

“ It is still easier to see that Christian churches and theologians differ for this same reason, and to a much greater extent. No creed, no church, no theology, that builds on the Word of God, can be wholly wrong. Its difference from others must lie in its partial appreciation of the truth, in its inability to take in all truths in their relative proportion. And so in literature and science and philosophy some men are impressed with material evidences, others with moral. Some men are poets, others are logicians ”

“ That would be an outrageous impugnment of the goodness and mercy of God, especially when he has distinctly declared that he does not willingly afflict or grieve the child of man. They are meant to discipline our souls—to show us truth more clearly, to open to our minds the realities of life, and to guide us into the ways of thinking and acting which are better than those we followed before. And if so, then they will do their work only when they are themselves relatively forgotten in the new life to which they introduce us. ”

“ Raise up the fallen. Teach the ignorant. Keep thy mind busy with useful thoughts. Give thy brain and hand to useful toil. Forget thy own pains and griefs in ministering to those which others have. It will then indeed be worth thy while to dismiss them from command of thee, for they will never be of so much use as when they thus stimulate kind and gentle deeds. It is thus that thou wilt "find in loss a gain to match," and rise on "stepping stones of your dead self to higher things." ”

“ But death will bring no deliverance to the impenitent. Behold Dives: "Son, remember!" There are no waters of Lethe. There is only one way of securing peace and forgetfulness—confession, repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ. Then we may forget our sins and errors. Over them is sprinkled the atoning blood. Justice is satisfied; and forgetting the things which are behind, reaching forth for the things which are before, we may with elastic step and happy hearts press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. ”

“ In all, infinite wisdom, the Father's goodness, and eternal righteousness move. He shows the way, and man's highest privilege—yea, man's strength and food—is to do his will, because we love and trust and adore him so entirely that what he wishes, that we are glad to do. ”

“ It may indeed be true that, unlike Christ, you have no clear idea of why God sent you into the world. Few have, but it would seem to quite remove God from actual government of the world to say that, therefore, he had no purpose. That glowing picture which the apostle paints of the rising temple should forbid the doubt. Every stone has its place and is needed. It may need to be broken and hewn, to be polished; it may be hid in an unseen place within the wall; no man may notice it. ”

“ But we must keep life's balance true. Some people are always living among the gravestones, regretting what is now inevitable, mourning over losses that cannot be repaired, thinking the days of old better than those which are to be—and wasting their energies in sorrowful reminiscences and wistful longings for a perished past, instead of using their energies in the accomplishment of what may be done for the winning of better crowns. It is against this practice that the apostle's experience warns. ”

“ The really wonderful thing is that men and women are so well able to forget the trials and sorrows through which they pass. When we think how heavy these are in nearly every life—how bitter the partings are as we journey along the pathway, how much disappointment and loss there are in the experiences of even the more fortunate—the marvel is that there are so many happy faces and that the sorrows of humanity are so soon forgotten in the enjoyment of other things. ”

“ He who has won the greatest influence over the race, he before whom the head bows in adoration, he who has changed already the course of history, and will change it until every knee has bowed to him, was one whose supreme wish was to be an obedient Son. ”

“ Greek thought vibrated between the two extremes; and from the beginning of Christian history the problem has vexed the ingenuity and taxed the patience of the Church. It is not peculiar to Calvinism. It is a problem which has ever risen up before inquiring minds and baffled the wisdom of the greatest who have grappled with it.
And so, too, most of the specific doubts about and objections to Christian doctrine have descended to us from remote generations. Modern philosophy turns out to be only a careful repetition of speculations which were indulged in by the earliest thinkers. ”

“ The life which follows Christ in doing good, which forsakes its own pleasure at the call of those in need, which loves and works for God—the life which is at harmony with God and at peace with its fellow-men—that life appears more and more beautiful as we try it, and its reward more and more worthy of our toil. ”

“ They absorb the energy of most of us, these imaginary piles of glittering dollars that we think we see one day ours, these famous honors in professional or public life that we hope one day to have. They are the corruptible crowns for which the majority of men are striving, and which fill the souls of millions with selfish and sordid thoughts. ”

“ They reveal a devotion so complete as to entirely control his mind. They reveal a soul so absorbed in doing the Divine will as to be insensible for the time to ordinary physical needs. They reveal a self-consecration which is absolute, and yet which is so spontaneous and glad as to be self-sustaining ”

“ As the vegetation soon springs up on the battlefield, as ruined houses are transformed into fertile hillocks, and the plain where man and horse rolled in awful carnage becomes ere long the harvest field of the farmer, so the pains and griefs of human life are buried under the new labors and pleasures which beckon to themselves the human mind. ”

“ Purves was a man who did with all his might what his hands found to do.
One rarely finds a man with such capacity for hard work and varied work. When he sustained the dual relation of pastor and professor in Princeton, he never allowed the duties of one sphere of labor to be an excuse for slighting the other sphere of labor. He was always up to date in the literature of his department, notwithstanding the exacting calls of his parish. Nor did he find an easy mode of preparation for the pulpit by giving his theological lectures a homiletical form. ”

“ He attained the highest culture which his master Gamaliel could give him. The way was open for him to become a noted man in his nation, a leader in Church and State. He valued these things. He did not toss them from him without an effort, but he did toss them from him. In the sense in which I have explained it, he forgot them: "What things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ." That he might follow the truth and serve the Lord, he turned his mind away from all the honor and gain which the Jewish world could offer him. ”

“ There, for instance, is that weary question about the reason why God allowed sin and misery to enter into his world—a question which men are still pondering, under which they are still restless and sometimes unhappy. But lo! it is as old as human history. The ancient Brahmins wrestled with it. We find it echoed in the hymns of Chaldea that date from the days of Abraham, in the songs of Greece, and in the literature of the age of Solomon; and neither philosophy nor science, neither discovery nor accident, has to this day been able to frame a satisfactory answer. ”