The Discipline of War | Page 6

strong drink during the continuance
of the war--is helping to knock a nail into the coffin of one of the
silliest and most fatal delusions that has ever wrought havoc to body,
soul, and spirit.
And then there is that other weird notion that you cannot be really
strong and healthy without stimulant. For you the glass of beer or wine
may be a mere harmless luxury, in the way in which you take it. I
purposely exclude spirits, which I am fanatic enough to think should
only be used medicinally. But every individual total abstainer helps to
swell the testimony not only to the non-necessity of alcohol, but to the
fact that, according to the view of a large part of the medical profession,
the human frame is better without it.

You may say, "What good will my abstinence do to people with whom
I never come in contact?" Tell me what influence really is; how it
spreads, by what unseen modes it ramifies and extends.
Tell me the real significance, the true spiritual value, of the fact that "if
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it: if one member
rejoice, all the members rejoice with it."
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