Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 23. "Forgetting, I Press Forward."

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 23. "Forgetting, I Press Forward."



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 23. "Forgetting, I Press Forward."

Other Subjects in this Topic:

"Forgetting, I Press Forward."

But that word " man " seems to have more than one meaning. There is a cheaper use of it for the male of the human race, with the usual supply of organs, and the usual stock of limbs to walk and work with, but with no high controlling aim. And then there is the nobler use of it for that fine spirit, of either sex, which sees the high aim of life, and bends every bit of strength steadily towards reaching it.

I want to have the boldness to talk a bit about a man, the ideal man. In a day when the practical is seizing the lines and driving hard that word ideal is misunderstood and abused. There is nothing so really practical as the truly ideal. Ideal does not mean visionary in the weak sense. It means aiming high; no, it means aiming highest. It has not gotten up there, but it is reaching, stretching up. It is dissatisfied with anything a whit less than the highest level. Its favorite motto is "Forgetting, I press forward." Forgetting the things behind, I press toward the mark.

The victories are forgotten in the eager reach for greater. The temptations and falls and failures are forgotten except as warnings in the onward push. The ideal man is he who has a vision of the mountain top, and is sweetly, earnestly, untiringly, unflinchingly making every bit of strength and time and every circumstance bend towards reaching it. And who resolutely pushes aside everything that would hinder or not help.

We want in our talk to-day to get a bit, a good clear bit, of a vision of that mountain top, to reach which is the thing best and most worth while. It will only be a bit, though, at best. For every man must see his own vision. And the vision increases in size and clearness as one climbs. The man we are talking about just now is a trinity. There are three of him tied up together. The three are in a scale ascending from lowest to highest. At the lowest there is a body; yet though lowest it is never low; at the lowest it is high. The lowest rung of this ladder is high.

A step up is the mind. Every man has a mind, though quite a number do not seem to have suspected that fact. It is peculiar in its make-up; there is a cold-storage room for facts; a photographer's highly sensitized plate for receiving impressions of all that comes; and a judge sitting above all to weigh and sift and give decisions and guide all below. And highest of all is the spirit which lives in the body, thinks through the mind, and holds the sceptre of the life.

The true man aims steadily to have a trained body, its powers matured or rather maturing, disciplined to obey and under full control. It is to be kept steadily in its place of a faithful servant. That is a very high place, to serve faithfully the purpose intended. He does not coddle his body, nor abuse it; he is not heedless of its requirements; and, above all, he is not ignorant of its nature and needs, and does not allow it to reverse the true order and become master. This man has not attained, but he is reaching, and this is his aim.