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