The Discipline of War | Page 8

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