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. Soul ([Greek: psyche]) is the lower attribute which man has in common with the animals; spirit ([Greek: pneuma]) the higher one which they do not possess, and which makes man capable of religion. In this sense, then, the soul would mean the life the man or woman is leading, in the home, the business, the pleasures, the relaxations, as distinct from the definite exercise of devotion or worship.