_For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix._




IX

=Discipline through Victory=

EASTER DAY

Romans vi. 9

"Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more."


To couple the word discipline with victory may seem incongruous almost
to the point of impossibility. Yet, if we look below the surface, we
shall see that never is the connection more strong and the need for
realising it more urgent.

Lent is over, its special discipline has passed, and now the danger
begins. The danger is lest any progress made, any victory won, should
lead to that self-confidence which can only end in disaster. Success is
often a discipline far more fatal in its results than failure.

We celebrate to-day the grandest victory the world has ever known: a
victory which sprang out of the depths of an apparently complete defeat.
"We trusted that it was He which should have redeemed Israel." Vain