i CORINTHIANS ix. 25 267
H Here is a little kingdom, which we shall characterize as the kingdom of merely muscular competition. Men are going to try- muscular force with their fellow-men, — they are going to have a boat race. You and I cannot walk along the river-side and instantly take into our heads the notion that we will have a spin with these men and beat them all. That can't be done. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads even to athletic supremacy. The men are going into training ; they are going to put themselves under tutors and governors; they are going to submit to a bill of fare and a course of discipline which you and I would take to very unkindly. But why are they going to do so ? Because they have determined to take a higher seat in the kingdom of mere athletic exercise and enjoyment. Now it is a very strange thing that you, a man fourteen stones weight, cannot just get into the very first boat that comes in your way and outstrip the men who have been in drill and training and exercise for the last three months. But you cannot do so. As a mere matter of fact, a man who has been drilled, disciplined, exercised, will beat you, except a miracle be wrought for your advantage.1
2. Rigid self-control. — Every man that is striving for the mastery is " temperate in all things." The discipline for runners and athletes was rigid. They had ten months of spare diet — no wine — hard gymnastic exercises every day, until not an ounce of superfluous flesh was upon their muscles, before they were allowed to run in the arena. And, says St. Paul, that is the example for us. They practised this rigid discipline and abstin- ence by way of preparation for the race, and after it was run they might dispense with the training. You and I have to practise rigid abstinence as part of the race, as a continuous necessity. They did not only abstain from bad things, they did not only avoid criminal acts of sensuous indulgence; they abstained from many perfectly legitimate things. So for us it is not enough to say, " I draw the line there, at this or that vice, and I will have nothing to do with these." You will never make a growing Christian if abstinence from palpable sins only is your standard. You must lay aside every sin, of course, but also every weight. Many things are weights that are not sins ; and if we are to run fast we must run light ; and if we are to do any good in this world we have to live by rigid control and abstain from much that is perfectly legitimate, because, if we do not, we
1 Joseph Parker.
268 FOR THE CROWN
shall fail in accomplishing the highest purposes for which we are here.
TJ Only on one occasion have I seen him angry, and I mention the circumstance now because I feel convinced that his lack of disciplinary power, which has been noted in the matter of his Harrow work, was due to excess rather than to defect of moral force. Conscious of his power, he was, I believe, afraid to let himself go, and so habitually exercised a severe self-restraint. It was in the early Peterborough days, as he and I were starting out for a walk, that, in passing through the passage, which was then being tiled, he remarked to the man at work that he was not laying the tiles straight. The man contradicted him, and then my father said something which seemed to annihilate the culprit. I was astonished at my father losing his temper, but more astonished still at the effect of his wrath : the man trembled and turned pale, and I thought he would be falling down dead.1
The perfect poise that comes of self-control,
The poetry of action, rhythmic, sweet, — That unvexed music of the body and soul
That the Greeks dreamed of, made at last complete. — Our stumbling lives attain not such a bliss ;
Too often, while the air we vainly beat, Love's perfect law of liberty we miss.2
3. Concentration of aim. — There are few things more lacking in the average Christian life of to-day than resolute, conscious concentration upon an aim which is clearly and always before us. Do you know what you are aiming at ? This is the first question. Have you a distinct theory of life's purpose that you can put into half a dozen words, or have you not ? In the one case, there is some chance of attaining your object; in the other, none. Alas ! we find many Christian people who do not set before themselves, with emphasis and constancy, as their aim the doing of God's will, and so sometimes they do it, when it happens to be easy, and sometimes, when temptations are strong, they do not. It needs a strong hand on the tiller to keep it steady when the wind is blowing in puffs and gusts, and sometimes the sail bellies full and sometimes it is almost empty. The various strengths of the temptations that blow us out of our course are 1 Life and Letters of Brooke Foss JVestcott, i. 351. ■ Annie Matheson.