A Noble Despair

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Philippians 3:13-14

Brothers, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind…

"During the nine years that I was his wife," says the widow of the great artist Opie," I never saw him satisfied with one of his productions, and often, very often, have I seen him enter my sitting room, and throwing himself in an agony of despondence on the sofa, exclaim, 'I never, never shall be a painter as long as I live!'" It was a noble despair, such as is never felt by the self-complacent daubers of sign boards, and it bore the panting aspirant up to one of the highest niches in the artistic annals of his country. The selfsame dissatisfaction with present attainments is a potent force to bear the Christian onward to the most eminent degree of spirituality and holiness.

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