The Discipline of War | Page 3

and "God."
The purely natural, human side of even the greatest saint would prefer to sit over the fire; but then our nature is not left unassisted, and even in a simple thing like this God the Holy Ghost comes to our aid with His suggestions of the higher course, and illuminates the path of duty. That is one of the most blessed features of the ministry of the Spirit; He enlightens, He persuades, He never compels: if He did, your will would not be free.
This explains what the discipline of the will really means. It is just the laying of ourselves open to the voice of the living God, speaking within us.
As we do this, day by day, the will itself becomes braced and strengthened, so that the struggle against the lower nature grow less and less fierce, the power of choosing the higher course more and more easy.
Here is our first practical thought for this Lent.
Watch yourself and your life, especially in those particulars in which you know that you have been getting out of hand. The prayers omitted, curtailed, said carelessly, said or attempted in bed, instead of on your knees: what a grievous failure, isn't it?
The carelessness about preparation before and thanksgiving after Communion, the irregularity of your attendances; the habit of Self-Examination, or of Confession, dropped--why? The Bible neglected.
Then the self-indulgences in the matter of sleep, food, drink, and purely wasted hours.
All these things are sapping the manhood and dignity of the will. Sometimes even more dangerously and insidiously than open sins, because with regard to these conscience does speak; but when we are merely drifting down the stream of time, the pleasant lapping of the ripples on the side of the bark lulls conscience into fatal sleep.
Look at your life, ask yourself the question, boldly and honestly, what is the principle upon which it is being lived, God or self? When the answer comes you will see clearly the first steps to take in the disciplining of the will.
Glorious examples of what can be done abound around you. Think you there has been no struggle on the part of those tens of thousands who have given up comforts, home, prospects, harmless pleasures, in exchange for the ghastly miseries of the trenches, the appalling risks by land, on or beneath the sea, in the air, all at the call of a stern, compelling duty, which told them that the life really worth living was the one spent, laid down if need be, for King and country?
Think too of the heroism of the wives, the mothers, the sweethearts, on whose lips there must have trembled over and again, "I will not, I cannot let you go." Yet the will was disciplined, the words remained unspoken, the tears were shed in secret, and these brave hearts, even in breaking, shall find their reward.
It was at Waterloo one afternoon, a young officer was being seen off for the front by father, brother, and _fiancée_. The two former bravely and cheerily said their good-bye, and withdrew a little to leave the young couple for their farewell; a kiss, a close embrace, outward smiles, but tears very near the eyes; and then as the officer got into the carriage just this one remark: "It's precious hard upon the women." What a world of meaning there was in that.
Above all, as your pattern and your power, look to Him Who said, "I came down from Heaven not to do mine own will but the will of Him that sent Me."
_For suggested meditations during the week, see Appendix._

II
=The Discipline of the Body=
FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
1 Cor. ix. 27
"I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage."
On Ash Wednesday we were considering some purely subjective realities, such as principles, motives, will--things we could not see. To-day we think about a very objective substance, ever present to our senses--our body. A man may deny point blank the existence of his soul--using the word in its ordinary acceptation--he cannot say, "I have not got a body." Even if he should conceive of that body as a mere bundle of ideas, an accumulation of sensations, yet there it is, making itself felt in countless ways.
So intimately bound up is it with every part of our life, apparently so infinitely the most real part of us, that we often think of it as being our true self. Yet every cell and fibre of it changes in the course of seven years. Therefore in itself it cannot maintain our identity. Have you ever pinched your nail, right down at its base, and watched the dark mass of congealed blood making its way to the tip of the finger, and then dispersing? This gives you some idea of the pace at which the body is being burned up and renewed.
All