leading, in the home, the business, the pleasures, the relaxations, as
distinct from the definite exercise of devotion or worship.

Of course it is absolutely impossible to draw a hard and fast line
between sacred and secular. All secular affairs, rightly conducted, have
their sacred side; and conversely all sacred matters have their secular
side, for they form part of the life the man is living "in the age."

It is the neglect of this truth which is responsible for much of the
moral and religious failure of the day.

Business is secular, prayer is sacred, and so they have no practical
connection each with other.

Amusement is secular (often vastly too much so, in the very lowest sense
of the word); Holy Communion is sacred; therefore there is no link
between them. Whereas the prayer and the Communion should be the
ennobling and sanctifying power alike of work and play.

Bearing this caution in mind, we shall to-day look at certain features
of the so-called secular life of the day in which discipline needs to be
strongly exercised.

No doubt about it, the soul of the nation has been growing sick, sick
"nigh unto death."

Luxury has been increasing with giant strides; the mad race for pleasure
has helped to empty our Churches, to rob our Charities, to diminish the
number of our Candidates for Holy Orders, to make countless ears deaf to
the call which the country, through that magnificent Christian soldier,