MATHILDE WREDE was a baroness, the daughter of a provincial governor in Finland--an educated, cultured, and gifted musician.  In her teens she was taken by the Cross and became Christ's captive.  She literally spent herself for the prisoners of Finland.  In her own home "she lived on the same fare as the prisoner in prison, and they knew it.  Such were the contrasts in this life--related by birth to the highest breeding and by choice to the greatest need." Dr. Ernest Gordon says, regarding the place of affection she held in the hearts of Finnish prisoners, that "idolized" would be a lean word.  "One convict invited her to his home and slept on the floor before her door like a dog so that she should not be disturbed in any way." Dr. Gordon further says regarding her tireless ministry and self-disciplined life:

When, after a night of insomnia, she felt a certain reluctance to take up her daily task, she would say, to herself encouragingly, "Today I have again the privilege of being occupied with my Father's business." Then while going down the stairway, she would continue, "O my poor body! How tired you are! We are now going to try again to get a-going.  Up to now you have shown yourself obedient and patient when love spurred you to work.  I thank you.  I know that today you will not leave me in the lurch."

What an emancipation!  What a redemption!  And what is it to be redeemed, if we be not liberated from the lesser, the lower, the lustful?  God help us if Christian victory can make us no "better than our bodies' inclinations." Thrice happy are those liberated, light-hearted, carefree souls who can almost teasingly encourage their fatigued frames as could Mathilde Wrede.  Such a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.  Has the reader leaned on the flesh, been subject to it, attached?  And then it has let you down?  It is only that you may find the hidden, secret gold of self-discipline.  Seek for her as for hidden treasure.

There are those who may wonder and sigh over such a standard.  To you it is nebulous and unattainable.  It is true that, until one has come to an end of all strength and purpose and resolution of the flesh, every attempt to practice such self-discipline will lead us to either fortify ourselves in self-righteousness or to the quagmire of Paul's, "What I would I do not" (Romans 7).  The flesh must be dealt with first and always at the Cross.  Let us illustrate.  After Andrew Murray had spoken earnestly upon prayer he received a letter from a noted and devoted minister in which he wrote: "As far as I am concerned, it does not seem to help me to hear too much about the life of prayer, the strenuous exertion, the time and trouble and endless effort it will cost us.  These things discourage me.  I have time after time put them to the test, and the result has always been sadly disappointing." Mr. Murray replied: "I think I have never mentioned exertion and struggle, because I am so entirely convinced that our efforts are futile, unless we first learn to abide in Christ by a simple faith." This minister also added: "The message I need is this: 'See that your relationship to your living Saviour is what it ought to be.  Live in His presence, rejoice in His love, rest in Him."' Mr. Murray assured this minister he was quite right, but that, if his relationship to the living Saviour was what it ought to be, it would certainly make possible a successful life of prayer.  But we cannot live in the flesh and pray in the Spirit.  

Prayerlessness is symptomatic of a life lived in the flesh, a lack of life in the Spirit.  It takes life, the life of the Cross, to replace the death-damp of the flesh.  This book is being written for that purpose--that we may have the power and ability, as well as desire, to live and to pray and to preach according to God's blessed will.

Only those who understand a measure of the emancipation of the Cross have any thirst for the subject in hand.  But the anointed of the Lord, those chosen for spiritual leadership, can no more escape the sword of self-discipline than the field the plow, or the vine the pruning knife.  "Pervading all nature," said Herbert Spencer, "we may see at work a stern Discipline, which is a little CRUEL, that it may be very KIND."

There is scarcely a thrill comparable to that of witnessing a disciplined military commander lead his men into the thick of battle.  Such a man can lead them where he could never drive them.  Those who lead others must themselves be disciplined.  It is said that in World War I a well-preserved official "tried to persuade the Arabian leader Faisal (afterward king of Iraq) to undertake the impossible; he said that it would end the war at