life.

Another purpose for which the whole panorama of life is made to pass
before us, and for which all the gymnastic of life exercises us, is
that we may be made submissive to the great Will, and may keep His
commandments.

These thoughts should be with us in our retrospect, and then our
retrospect will be blessed: First, we are to look back and see God's
guidance everywhere, and second, we are to judge of the things that we
remember by their tendency to make character, to make us humble, to
reveal us to ourselves, and to knit us in glad obedience to our Father
God.

II. And now turn to the other consideration which may help to make
remembrance a good, viz., the issues to which our retrospect must tend,
if it is to be anything more than sentimental recollection.

First, let me say: Remember and be thankful. If what I have been saying
as to the standard by which events are to be tried be true; if it be
the case that the main fact about things is their power to mould
persons and to make character, then there follows, very plainly and
clearly, that all things that come within the sweep of our memory may
equally contribute to our highest good.

Good does not mean pleasure. Bright-being may not always be well-being,
and the highest good has a very much nobler meaning than comfort and
satisfaction. And so, realising the fact that the best of things is
that they shall make us like God, then we can turn to the past and
judge it wisely, because then we shall see that all the diversity, and