John Hasloch Potter - The Discipline of War
J >>
John Hasloch Potter >> The Discipline of War
THE DISCIPLINE OF WAR
_Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent_
FROM ASH WEDNESDAY to EASTER SUNDAY
WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING
SUGGESTED SUBJECT FOR MEDITATION, AND SUITABLE PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE,
FOR EACH DAY IN LENT
BY THE REV.
J. HASLOCH POTTER, M.A.
_Hon. Canon of Southwark and Vicar of St. Mark's, Surbiton, Surrey_
London
SKEFFINGTON & SON
34, Southampton Street, Strand, W.C.
_Publishers to His Majesty the King_
1915
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The war has introduced into countless lives new conditions, and has
strangely modified, or emphasised, those already existing. These
Addresses, prepared under much stress of other work, are intended to
supply, in very simple fashion, hints for conduct and points for thought
along the lines of our fresh or deepened responsibilities. An Appendix
gives a suggested subject and a passage of Scripture for each day during
Lent. May God the Holy Ghost, without Whom man's best labours are in
vain, bless this little book to its purpose. Please say a prayer for the
writer, who, as much as any, needs grace that he may try to practise
what he preaches.
J. HASLOCH POTTER.
Surbiton.
The Conversion of St. Paul. 1915.
FOREWORD
Kingston House,
Clapham Common.
_January 19th, 1915._
My dear Canon,--
You have invited me to say a few words introductory to the little book
you are putting forth, and of which you have sent me the advance proofs.
From the great excellence of that which I have read, I am convinced
that your Lenten meditations on the Discipline of War, will be of
pre-eminently spiritual value in a time when publications on the
subject are multiplied. That the war is to leave us on a higher
plane of self-discipline, and with higher ideals of citizen life and
responsibility, every Christian must acknowledge. Your little Lenten
scheme is just that which is needed to give reality and action to what
might otherwise be left in the realm of theory. May the Holy Spirit make
use of your work to the benefit of us all and for the Glory of God.
Your sincere friend,
CECIL HOOK,
_Bishop._
CONTENTS
I
PAGE
The Discipline of the Will 1
II
The Discipline of the Body 9
III
The Discipline of the Soul 18
IV
The Discipline of the Spirit 27
V
Discipline through Obedience 35
VI
The Discipline of Sorrow 44
VII
Discipline through bereavement 52
VIII
Discipline through Self-sacrifice 62
IX
Discipline through Victory 70
* * * * *
Appendix 81
THE DISCIPLINE OF WAR
I
=The Discipline of the Will=
ASH WEDNESDAY
Isaiah lviii. 6
"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?"
Discipline is the central idea of the observance of Lent. An
opportunity, rich in its splendid possibilities, comes before us this
year. Much of the discipline of this Lent is settled for us by those
tragic circumstances in which we find ourselves placed.
God seems to be saying to us, in no uncertain tones, "Is not this the
fast that I have chosen?"
Our amusements are already to a large extent curtailed, maybe by our own
individual sorrows or anxieties; maybe by the feeling of the incongruity
of enjoying ourselves while anguish and hardship reign supreme around
us.
Our self-denials are already in operation, under the stress of
straitened means, or the vital necessity of helping others less favoured
than ourselves.
Our devotions have already been increased in frequency and in
earnestness, for the call upon our prayers has come with an insistence
and an imperiousness that brook no denial.
To this extent, and further in many directions, our Lent has been taken
out of our own hands; ordered and pre-arranged by that inscrutable, yet
loving, Providence which has permitted the War to come about.
Thus, at the very outset, we are brought into harmony with the central
idea of discipline--not my will, but God's will.
Broadly, discipline is defined as "Mental and moral training, under
one's own guidance or under that of another": the two necessarily
overlap, and therefore we shall speak of God's discipline, acting upon
us from outside, and of our own co-operation with divine purposes, which
is our discipline of self from within.
In the forefront of the subject, and including every aspect of it upon
which we shall touch, stands that tremendous word--_will_.
Have you ever attempted to gauge the mystery, to sound the depth of
meaning implied in the simple sentence "I will"?
First of all what is the significance of "I"? You are the only one who
can say it of yourself. Any other must speak of you as "he" or "she";
but "I" is your own inalienable possession.
This is the mystery of personality. That accumulation of experience,
that consciousness of identity which you possess as absolutely, uniquely
your own; which none other can share with you in the remotest degree. "A
thing we consider to be unconscious, an animal to be conscious, a person
to be self-conscious."
This leads on to a further mystery, alike concerned with so apparently
simple a matter that its real complexity escapes us.
"I _will_": I, the self-conscious person, have made up my mind what
I am going to do, and, physical obstacles excepted, I will do it.
The freedom of man's will has been the subject of endless dispute from
every point of view, theistic, atheistic, Christian and non-Christian.
Merely as a philosophic controversy it has but little bearing upon daily
life. The staunchest necessitarian, who argues _theoretically_ that
even when he says "I will" he is under the compulsion of external force,
yet acts _practically_ in exactly the same fashion as the rest of
mankind.
When the freedom of the will is considered in relation to religion, then
it bears a totally different aspect. If the will be not free, religion,
as a personal matter, falls to the ground, for its very essence is man's
voluntary choice of God.
Here too those who deny the freedom of man's will doctrinally yet accept
it as a working fact. Calvin, whose theory of Predestination and
Irresistible Grace seems to exclude man from any co-operation in his own
salvation, yet preached a Gospel not to be distinguished from that of
John Wesley!
For us Christians the freedom of the will is absolutely settled by Him
Who says, "Whosoever will let him come."
If you are sometimes troubled by certain passages in Scripture which
seem to imply that God's predestination overrides man's will, remember,
that whenever we are considering any question which concerns both God's
nature and man's nature, difficulty must arise, from the very fact that
our finite mind can only comprehend, and that but imperfectly, man's
side of the transaction. Things which now seem incompatible, such as
prayer and law; miracle and, what we are pleased to call, nature; God's
foreknowledge and man's free-will in the light of eternity will be seen
as only complementary parts of one divine whole.
Remember too that you must take the general bearing of Scripture; not
isolated passages in which, for the necessity of the argument, one side
is strongly emphasised. The Apostle who, thinking of the boundless power
of God's grace, says, "So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. ix. 16) is the one
who says "He willeth that all men should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4).
The love by which the Father gave up His Son; the life and death of that
Son; the ministry of God the Holy Ghost; the whole dispensation of the
Catholic Church, form one great tender appeal to the free-will of man.
Your free-will, my free-will, before which is placed the tremendous
responsibility of choosing or rejecting.
And now from the broad thought of will, at its highest point, occupied
with eternal choices and spiritual decisions, we turn to will as the
governing power in our lives.
It is, to a certain extent, self in action, for before even the
slightest movement of any part of the body, there must have gone,
automatically and unconsciously, an act of will.
Before every deliberate action there takes place a discussion, which
ultimately decides the attitude of the will, that is your final purpose.
Put quite simply, the _motives_ determine the _will_, and are
themselves decided by the _principles_ at the back of them.
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?
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 _fiancee_. 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 the while the personal "I" remains, deep-seated in the
self-conscious intellect, memory, will.
Of course the body plays an immensely important part in the complex
story of our existence. It is the machine by which the personal self
acts, speaks, loves, hates, chooses, refuses; therefore we can neither
ignore it nor despise it.
The popular notion concerning religion is that it is meant only for the
salvation of the soul. If this were so, then the coming of the Holy
Ghost would have sufficed for all needs.
One manifest purpose of the Incarnation was to give to the body the
possibility of holiness here, resurrection hereafter.
Very marvellous is the dignity conferred upon the body by the fact the
"Word was made flesh." From that flows forth the high position of the
Christian, whose body is a "temple of the Holy Ghost."
It is through the body that we receive the Sacraments, which are means
of grace to the soul.
Did time permit, it would be deeply interesting to trace out the use of
the word body in this connection--the natural body of our Lord, His
spiritual body after the Resurrection, His mystical body, the Church, in
which sense He Himself is called "the Saviour of the body" (Eph. v. 23),
His Sacramental Body, of which He says, "This is my body."
The discipline of the body.
The thought is prominently before us at the present moment, and first
let us look at it from its purely material side. Thousands of youths who
a few months ago were slouching, narrow-chested, feeble specimens of
underbred humanity, have now-expanded into well set up, hardened men.
The body has been disciplined by drill, exercises, route-marching, and
the like. Those who return from the war uninjured will, we may hope, be
in such improved condition as may somewhat compensate for the terrible
loss of vigorous life which is taking place.
Had there been universal military training of the youth of our land for
the past few generations, either the present war would never have taken
place; or the results of the first three weeks of it would have been
vastly different from what they were.
Now take another significant fact: letter after letter from the front
says, "We are all very fit." The average "fitness" in the trenches is,
broadly speaking, higher than that of training camps at home, especially
of those where little or no supervision is exercised as to strong drink.
How plainly this shows that hardness, even of an extreme character,
braces up the body; softness and self-indulgence enfeeble it.
S. Paul affords a wonderful illustration of this; obviously a man of
very delicate health, frequently ill (probably this was the thorn in the
flesh), yet accomplishing vast labours, and, in addition, buffeting his
own flesh lest it should get the upper hand.
Here, then, we reach the first great principle in the discipline of the
body. It must not have its own way, or it will infallibly assert its
sway over the man's real self.
That is what happens in the case of the habitual drunkard or the slave
of lust. That which at first is a temptation, perfectly capable of being
resisted, becomes at last what the doctors call a "physical" craving
that, humanly speaking, cannot be overcome. By constant yielding the
will has been weakened to such an extent that the personal "I" no longer
reigns; the usurping body has taken its place and rules supreme.
Let us take the main thought of self-control, which is the true
rendering of the word temperance, the state in which, as S. James says,
the man is "able to bridle the whole body" (S. James iii. 2), and test
ourselves by it this Lent. Am I retaining my dominion over my body, or
is it gradually pushing itself into my place?
Self-examination, honestly performed, will reveal this at once, for
conscience, unless blunted by neglect, will speak infallibly.
For instance, when you find some indulgence of the flesh concerning
which you say "I can't help it," there your body has vanquished you. It
is absorbing your personality, robbing you of your divine birthright, in
which you say, "I will," "I will not."
And now to go a step further--the disciplining of the body, care in
regard to eating, drinking, amusements, and the like; strictness as to
luxuries and things which, though lawful, may not be expedient, not only
tend to bodily strength and mere physical well-being, but brace up the
will power, because they entail the constant exercise of it.
Here is where the practical wisdom of the Church comes in as regards
fasting. One day in every week is set apart, beside other days and
seasons, as a reminder of the fact that fasting is a duty of the
Christian life, just as much as almsgiving and prayer--a duty sanctified
by the example enjoined by the precept of our Lord Himself.
True, no hard and fast rules are laid down, but a little sanctified
common sense will dictate to us how to make fast-days a reality, by some
simple acts of self-denial.
Our last thought is one of intense practical importance--our attitude at
the present moment towards strong drink.
Lord Kitchener and the Archbishop of Canterbury have both on several
occasions called the attention of the nation to the terrible evils
arising from the unhappy custom of treating soldiers to strong drink.
_Punch_, always on the side of morality and rightness, has dealt
with it in the following trenchant fashion:--
TO A FALSE PATRIOT
He came obedient to the Call;
He might have shirked, like half his mates
Who, while their comrades fight and fall,
Still go to swell the football gates.
And you, a patriot in your prime,
You waved a flag above his head,
And hoped he'd have a high old time,
And slapped him on the back, and said:
"You'll show 'em what we British are!
Give us your hand, old pal, to shake";
And took him round from bar to bar
And made him drunk--for England's sake.
That's how you helped him. Yesterday
Clear-eyed and earnest, keen and hard,
He held himself the soldier's way--
And now they've got him under guard.
That doesn't hurt you; you're all right;
Your easy conscience takes no blame;
But he, poor boy, with morning's light,
He eats his heart out, sick with shame.
What's that to you? You understand
Nothing of all his bitter pain;
You have no regiment to brand;
You have no uniform to stain;
No vow of service to abuse;
No pledge to King and country due;
But he has something dear to lose,
And he has lost it--thanks to you.[1]
[Footnote 1: O.S. in _Punch_, November 4th, 1914. By kind
permission of the Proprietors.]
A man who had so distinguished himself at the front as to be mentioned
in a despatch came home slightly wounded. In less than twenty-four hours
he was in a cell at a police station, and the next day fined forty
shillings. Oh! the pathetic pity of it. That man got into trouble
through the exhibition of one of the purest and best features of our
human nature, the desire to show kindness. In their well-intentioned
ignorance this man's friends--yes, they were real friends--knew of only
one way of displaying friendliness--they gave him liquor.
I am not going to blame them, nor him entirely; I am going to lay some
of the fault upon ourselves.
Since the beginning of the last century the habits of the upper classes,
to use a generic though unpleasant term, have improved immeasurably.
Then excess was more or less the rule among men of good position, was to
a certain extent expected and provided for; witness _The School for
Scandal_, or the leading novels of the period. Now, the man who
disgraces himself at a dinner-table is never invited again.
And even as we go down in the social scale much improvement is apparent.
Those who remember Bank Holidays on their first introduction will
recollect that the excess of the working classes was quite open and
shameless; but to-day some effort is generally made by the victims, or
their friends, to hide the disgrace, because Public Opinion is
improving. That is where we come in.
Many causes of intemperance in strong drink are matters for legislative
or municipal action; for example, overcrowding, insanitary dwellings or
surroundings, sweating, excessive hours of labour, adulteration of
liquors. But there are two factors upon which we can exercise direct
influence, because they are connected with that great corporate entity
called Public Opinion.
First let us take the one upon which we have already touched--the notion
that friendliness and good fellowship are essentially connected with
strong drink. This is at the bottom of those terrible scenes when troops
are leaving our great London railway stations. Scenes so inexpressibly
sad to all thinking people.
Everyone who abstains entirely, or who takes the khaki button--a pledge
not to treat nor be treated to 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.