The Discipline of War | Page 9

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