Let us make this plain by an illustration.  It is pouring with rain, you are sitting cosily over the fire with an interesting book.  The thought comes into your mind, I ought to go and see my sick friend.  Then follows the deliberation:  the flesh says, “To-morrow will do just as well.”  The spirit says, “No, it won’t; you may both be dead to-morrow.”  The flesh says, “Perhaps I shall catch a cold”; the spirit says, “That fear wouldn’t keep you from going to a Picture Palace.”  The flesh says, “Perhaps he won’t care to see me to-day”; the spirit replies, “It’s a dull, wet afternoon, and he’s very likely to be alone.”

Now notice that at the back of each set of motives is a vital principle.  In the one case the lower self, in the other the higher self, that is to say “I” 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?