Part 2

Then perhaps you can explain in some way, how your abstinence shall spread to desolated homes, to stricken lives, in crowded slums or quiet villages, in fire-raked trenches or storm-tossed ships.

No act of self-sacrifice for His sake, Who though He was rich yet for our sakes became poor, ever went without its rich reward.

No tiny wave of influence ever yet sped forth from a Christian heart, but what reached its mark and wrought its work of beneficent power.

_For suggested meditations during the week, see Appendix._

III

=The Discipline of the Soul=

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

St. John vi. 38

"For I am come down from Heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me."

To-day we are going to speak of the soul not in its popular sense, as set over against the body, but in the scriptural meaning of the word as the broad equivalent of life.

To enter upon a philosophical discussion might prove interesting from a merely academic point of view, but would be eminently unpractical. Suffice it to say that when S. Paul speaks of the "body, soul and spirit" (1 Thess. v. 23), he takes the two latter as different faculties of the invisible part of man.

Soul ([Greek: psychê]) is the lower attribute which man has in common with the animals; spirit ([Greek: pneuma]) the higher one which they do not possess, and which makes man capable of religion.

In this sense, then, the soul would mean the life the man or woman is leading, in the home, the business, the pleasures, the relaxations, as distinct from the definite exercise of devotion or worship.

Of course it is absolutely impossible to draw a hard and fast line between sacred and secular. All secular affairs, rightly conducted, have their sacred side; and conversely all sacred matters have their secular side, for they form part of the life the man is living "in the age."

It is the neglect of this truth which is responsible for much of the moral and religious failure of the day.

Business is secular, prayer is sacred, and so they have no practical connection each with other.

Amusement is secular (often vastly too much so, in the very lowest sense of the word); Holy Communion is sacred; therefore there is no link between them. Whereas the prayer and the Communion should be the ennobling and sanctifying power alike of work and play.

Bearing this caution in mind, we shall to-day look at certain features of the so-called secular life of the day in which discipline needs to be strongly exercised.

No doubt about it, the soul of the nation has been growing sick, sick "nigh unto death."

Luxury has been increasing with giant strides; the mad race for pleasure has helped to empty our Churches, to rob our Charities, to diminish the number of our Candidates for Holy Orders, to make countless ears deaf to the call which the country, through that magnificent Christian soldier, Lord Roberts, and many others, has been making to manhood of the land. Week-ending, meals in restaurants, turning night into day, have robbed home-life of its grace and power, and produced a generation of young folk _blasé_ and discontented before they are out of girlhood and boyhood.

With this has come, inevitably, the loss of sense of responsibility. So long as I can enjoy myself and get my own way, why should I vex myself with the outworn question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" No! That has gone into the limbo of effete superstition.

And further, loss of the sense of proportion. There are some to whom it causes no moral shock to wear a dress costing a hundred guineas, while a vast number of seamstresses, shirtmakers, artificial flower makers, boot-closers, and the like, are working seventy hours for 5s. to 8s. a week. One mantle-presser, in Dalston, receives 1/2_d._ per mantle; she is most respectable, has four children, and earns from 5_s._ 6_d._ to 7_s._ a week!

We do not grumble at the hundred guineas being spent upon the dress, or a thousand guineas even, if the money went in due proportion all round to supply the _full living wage to each one engaged in its production_: and if the wearer interested herself keenly in social problems, and used her means wisely and well to afford relief where it was needed. This, alas! does not happen when the sense of proportion is lacking.

Take another case--alas! a fearfully common one. Men and women will gamble recklessly at Bridge, lose heavily, pay up, at whatever cost, because it is _a debt of honour_. All the while a hard-pressed tailor, a famished dressmaker and her children are kept out of their money, because it is only _a debt of commerce_. Could there be a more ghastly parody on the word honour?

Yet once more--the lack of seriousness. By seriousness we do not mean gloominess, nor withdrawal from society, or anything of the kind. We mean the flippant attitude towards life, the lack of serious, sustained interest in literature, in music, in art, in the legitimate drama; witness the theatres being turned into cinema shows, and the terrible paucity of sound, strong plays. Everything must be scrappy, light, and if a little (or more than a little) risky, so much the better.

We do not for a moment say that these evils are universal, God forbid, but none can deny that they have eaten deep into a large part of society, using the word in its broadest, not in its technical sense.

The soul of the nation needed discipline, and it has come suddenly, sharply, but, who shall dare to say, not mercifully?

And even in its very coming it brought a tremendous opportunity, for we were not compelled to make war, notice that!

We had an option. The temptation was subtle. You have no concern with Servia, throw over Belgium, let France take care of itself.

For a time, probably a very short time, we should have avoided war and its horrors. The bait was held out by some peddling politicians that we should have stood in a magnificent position to obtain trade, to control markets, to dictate prices to the rest of the world. Magnificent prospect! We went to war, and, by a strange paradox, secured peace with honour: peace of the national conscience. Had we forsaken Belgium we could never again have held up our heads among civilised honourable nations. Thus the very circumstances under which the War came about formed an appeal to the soul of the nation as embodied in its legislature; the Government rang true, and the nation, as one man, endorsed its decision.

And now the discipline has commenced.

Who can be flippant and careless with our coast towns liable to bombardment, and over a hundred lives already sacrificed in this little island, which we have always deemed to be the one absolutely secure spot in the whole world? Five months ago an earthquake in London would have seemed a far more likely event than the bombardment of Hartlepool, Scarborough, Whitby, and the dropping of shells on Yarmouth foreshore, or of bombs at Dover and Southend.

Who can be unconcerned when our ships are liable at any moment, and apparently in almost any place, to be sent headlong to the bottom of the sea by torpedoes or mines; possibly sometimes by those very mines we have been compelled to lay, and which happen to have broken loose?

This is one of the unavoidable hazards of war under modern conditions. It does not make us ignore the magnificent work of our Fleet, nor tremble for the ultimate issue.

Who can be giddy and careless with darkened streets, trains, trams, all telling of the awful possibilities of the new development of aerial warfare?

Who, even among those not directly touched by anxiety or bereavement, can go on just as usual in luxury, self-indulgence, and ease amid the crushing mass of suffering around them on all sides?

Thank God that, though we may have erred very grievously through softness of living, we are not a callous people, but we needed a strong, stern discipline of the national soul; some stirring and trumpet-tongued appeal to the national life, and in the righteous mercy of God it has come.

Some of the immediate effects are obvious; but what are the lasting results to be?

The _Guardian_, of a few weeks back, thus soundly comments upon the matter:--

"It is true that the outbreak of war put a sudden end to much that was thoughtless, stupid, and even base in contemporary life. 'Tango teas' and afternoon Bridge among women have receded almost as far into ancient history as dinners at Ranelagh or suppers at Cremorne. But human nature is easily frightened into propriety by a crisis; it is not so easy to maintain the new way of life when the fright is safely over. The things that are amiss in our national life, and above all that lack of seriousness which so many observers have lamented during the last few years, can be amended only by a clear conviction of the inherent unsoundness of our outlook, and a firm determination to rebuild it upon new and more stable foundations."

The soul of the nation needs discipline, and that can only come through the effort of the individual to discipline his own life.

There is a ceaseless temptation to echo the cry of the disciples in regard to the few loaves and fishes: "What are they among so many?"

Of what value or power is my feeble little life among the teeming millions that go to make up the nation?

Put away the thought, for it is a direct temptation of the Devil.

It was just when, in the very depths of his human despair, Elijah cried out, "I, I only am left," that God revealed to him the seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

It was because Athanasius was content to stand _contra mundum_, against the world, that the Catholic faith was preserved to the Church.

Let us very seriously examine ourselves as to the use we are making of our life with regard to other people.

We have considered that life, in various details, in respect to ourselves, and only incidentally as it affects others, but now let us put away all thought of self.

Take the one absolute standard of life as set in the text, "I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me."

The result was a life entirely devoted, from the first moment to the last, to one stupendous cause: the lifting up of humanity to the very throne of God.

You and I cannot reach even a fraction of the way towards that perfect standard; but it is our pattern, our plummet, our measuring-line.

Very practically, then, we must ask ourselves such questions as these:

What proportion of my time is spent for others?

Have I any method of employing time or any stated hours that I give to philanthropic or religious work; or do I just, in a casual way, let other people have odd moments, when I happen to think of it?

Similar questions should be asked as to money. Many people, especially those who do not keep accounts (which everyone ought to do), would be shocked if at the end of a year they could see the enormous disproportion between the vast amount they have frittered away on self, and the pitiful little doles they have handed out in the cause of charity.

One man, who kept three cars for private use, reduced an already paltry allowance made to a dependent because the price of petrol had gone up!

It is not that people cannot give; it is often only that they do not think. Look at the vast sums being poured into the Relief Funds. Why has not some proportion of it gone long ago to Hospitals obliged to close their wards, Waifs and Strays Societies compelled to refuse poor little outcasts? The money was there; it could have been spared then as well as now, but it needed some great shock to wake its owners up to the sense of proportion, the realisation of responsibilities.

And so in regard to such gifts as music, painting, acting, mechanics, stitchery; even such simple things as reading and writing. Have you ever read a book to, or written a letter for, anyone else? We might multiply these questions indefinitely, but enough has been said to enable us seriously to take in hand the disciplining of the soul, remembering that this life of ours is a precious loan entrusted to us by God the Father, redeemed for us by God the Son, sanctified in us by God the Holy Ghost, to be used by us, in due proportion, for our neighbours and ourselves.

_For suggested meditations during the week, see Appendix_.

IV

=The Discipline of the Spirit=

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

St. Luke vi. 12.

"He continued all night in Prayer to God."

Last week we looked at the soul as that faculty of life which, to a certain extent, we share with animals; to-day we pass on to consider, under the title of spirit, the higher endowment by which man is enabled to look up and, in the fullest exercise of his whole being, to say "my God."

A man without religion is undeveloped in regard to the highest part of his complex nature. In attaining to self-consciousness, and the special powers it brings, he has gone one step further than the animal, but has utterly failed of his true purpose. The supreme object of the self-consciousness, which reveals to him his personality, is that it should disclose its own origin in the personality of God.

One very striking effect of the War has been to produce a vast amount of testimony to the fact that man is, broadly speaking, religious by nature.

The services in the places of worship all over the land have been multiplied, intercession is becoming a felt reality, congregations have grown.

It is asserted, by those who have the best means of knowing, that by far the majority of the letters from the front contain references to religion, such as acknowledgments of God's providence, prayer for His help, or requests for the prayers of others. Sometimes, in the strange double-sidedness of human nature, accompanied by expletives obviously profane. Mention is often made of the bowed heads, and the prayer, in which both sides join, at the time of a joint burial during a temporary truce.

All these things show that the deeps of the fountains of natural religion have been broken up in wondrous fashion.

Our question to-day is: How shall we discipline that spirit which enables us to realise religion as a fact?

Let us try to get to the root of the matter.

There are two chief derivations of the word religion. One comes from the verb which means "to go through, or over again, in reading, speech, or thought." Hence religion is the regular or constant habit of revering the gods, and would be represented by the word devotion--an aspect most important to bear in mind.

The other derivation, and the more usual, derives religion from the idea of binding together, and tells of communion between man and God. For us Christians this thought finds its highest ideal and fulfilment in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The great characteristic action of religion is prayer; varying in its methods and degrees from merely mechanical performances, like the praying wheels of the Chinese up to the heart devotion of the Christian, poured out when commemorating, in the Holy Communion, the death and resurrection of His Lord.

The first essential of any prayer which is to be of value in the discipline of the spirit is regularity. No words can exaggerate the importance of morning prayer. Yet, alas! tens of thousands of professing Christians are content with evening prayer alone. The one who goes forth in the morning prayerless is just as ill-equipped to do his duty, and meet his temptations, as the foodless man is to perform physical work.

The whole story of the saintly life, alike in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Church, is that of diligence in prayer. It was to promote that spirit that the Church of Christ, following on the lines of the Jewish Church, from very early days adopted special hours for stated devotions, with the daily offering of the Holy Eucharist linking the whole system together.

The lowest standard to aim at is private prayer morning and evening, midday too if possible, and regular attendances at God's House on Sundays and Feast Days. The guiding principle, to be kept ever in mind, is not what my own inclinations suggest, but what the glory of God demands. Were this always the case, what magnificent congregations there would be.

Prayer represents a real business of the spirit into which we put the whole endowment of our being, intellect, memory, emotion, will.

Oh! those wandering thoughts, how they do distress us; and just in proportion as we wish to pray and are learning to pray, so we feel our deficiencies the more keenly.

A few moments before we commence our prayers spent in saying very quietly, "Thou God seest me," or "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," coupled with a simple yet earnest act of the realisation of God's presence, will be of infinite use.

The railway train coming into a station does not draw up with a jerk, but gradually slows down. So with us; we cannot come out of our rushing lives all in a moment into the quiet of God's presence; we need to slow down.

But much of the wandering in prayer is the direct result of the habit of wandering in life. Flitting from one subject, one book, one occupation to another; scrappy reading, talking, thinking; then, as a natural consequence, scrappy praying. A great master of the spiritual life used to say, "You will get far more help in your prayers by leading a more useful life, than by making tremendous efforts after concentration when you are actually at prayer."

The one who tries to keep alive the habitual sense of God's presence makes his whole life a prayer, of which the stated devotions only form a natural part. It is comparatively easy for such a one to concentrate his thought and to keep his attention fixed when engaged in his prayers.

Just a word or two about books of devotion. They serve a most useful purpose, especially in preparation and thanksgiving for Confession or Communion, but should never be allowed to take the entire place of the Christian's glorious privilege of pleading the "Abba Father," and speaking to God in his own words, day by day.

Be careful not to use prayers which are manifestly beyond your own standpoint or out of harmony with your own feeling. The mere repetition of phrases that do not represent your inner attitude towards truth only tends to formality; the effort to force a kind of artificial conformity, because you think you ought to feel this or that, invariably ends in unreality. Given these cautions, devotional books may be of great use, even for regular daily prayer, and often help to call back the thoughts which are flying off at a tangent.

To speak of discipline without touching upon Confession would be to omit one of its most essential features. Nightly self-examination must be performed, and that not perfunctorily, but with real intention of repentance and strictness of living. Self-examination is nothing more nor less than spiritual account-keeping; without it the man has no real idea of how the business of his soul stands.

When it reveals the fact that sin is making headway and the spirit losing ground, then the wise teaching of the Prayer Book should be followed; "the grief"--for such it ought to be--opened in Confession to God, before one of God's ministers, and the benefit of absolution secured.

Much of the terrible prejudice felt against this practice arises from the mistaken idea that the priest professes to forgive us our sins. The words of the Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, in our own Prayer Book, put the matter on its true footing:--"Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve, ... _forgive_ thee ... and by His authority ... I _absolve_ thee." The source of all pardon and the right to exercise it rest in God alone, but the message declaring the fact is part of the "ministry of reconciliation," committed, in the infinite condescension of God, to the "earthen vessels." An illustration may be taken from the pardon of a criminal condemned to death; the Home Secretary recommends it, but the King, on his sole authority, grants it, and then the message, the _absolvo te_, which lets the man go free, is delivered by the governor of the gaol.

Penitents, especially after a first confession at some crisis in mature life, often bear witness to the fact that it seemed to bring them straight into the presence of Jesus Christ; to make them feel the reality of His pardoning blood in a way they never could have believed possible. How strange that the very thing which by so many pious and thoroughly honest souls is dreaded because it is supposed to bring a man in between God and the soul, should yet so often be used by the Holy Spirit to give a wondrous and precious vision of Christ the Saviour.

Thus far we have spoken only of that kind of occasional Confession which is obviously contemplated by the Prayer Book; we have no time to dwell on its habitual use.

Suffice it to quote some words from the first English Prayer Book:--

"Requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest; nor those which think needful or convenient to open their sins to the priest to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church."

That staunch Evangelical Churchman, Bishop Thorold, who was strongly opposed to habitual Confession in our Communion, once said, "We cannot ignore the fact that the giants of old owed much of that saintliness, which we of the present day can only wonder at but cannot reproduce, to the practice of Confession."

If you should be in doubt about it for yourself, consult some spiritually-minded person who possesses experience in the matter. Not, on the one hand, the man who will tell you that it is the greatest curse the Church has ever known; nor, on the other, the one who would have it practised by everybody.

Surely for us sober Church folk there must be a loyal middle course, which leaves absolute freedom, so long as the individual "follows and keeps the rule of charity, and is satisfied with his own conscience."

Last, but most important of all, in the discipline of the spirit comes the Holy Communion, about which we shall speak next week.

As our closing thought, let us go back to what we said just now. The object of religion is God's glory, not man's enjoyment. See how this puts feelings down into their right, and subordinate, place. They are sometimes very delightful, sometimes very depressing, but always liable to be misleading. A great saint of old used to say:--"If God never gave me another moment of sensible devotion in prayer, I would go on praying, because His glory demands it."

Religion has to do with facts: the facts of what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost have done, and are doing, for us; the facts of what we have to do, to make the finished work of Christ our own.

Here, as always, our Lord Himself gives us the highest illustration. Neither as God, nor yet as perfect Man, was there an actual need for Him to pray; yet His whole life was punctuated with prayer: first because the glory of the Father required it, and next because His chosen Apostles must be taught by example as well as precept.

Let the same mind dwell in us. It is for the glory of God that I should have salvation; therefore by the help of God I will discipline my spirit.

_For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix._

V

=Discipline through Obedience=

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

St. Luke xxii. 19

"This do in remembrance of Me."

Our subject of to-day flows quite naturally out of what we said last week. Religion rests on facts, and its object is God's glory, not merely our profit. Our duty, therefore, is an absolute submission to those facts--in other words, implicit obedience.

This is being illustrated on all sides in regard to the War.