HOW THE WORLD of flesh rebukes and reproaches the Church!  It endures all manner of privation and peril, runs risks that make us shiver--all to achieve its goal.  In their fight to scale Mount Everest some years ago, a company of daring spirits were so bodily fit that they climbed and lived at an altitude of 27,000 feet.  They said that dozens of others could do the same "if only they liked," but they couldn't like.  The narrator says that these "have not the spirit." He then says of one of the climbers, "Many excelled him in bodily fitness, but where he excelled was in spirit.  His spirit drove his body to the utmost limit.  His spirit would not allow him to give up.  He must make one last desperate effort." And then the writer says, "The spirit will drive the body on and the body will respond to the spirit." These men passed through terrific trials, casualties mounted--a broken leg--a clot on the brain--feet frostbitten to the ankles--pneumonia, and deaths.

My friend, have you ever begun to climb?  Have you ever entered the ranks?  Have you ever so mastered
yourself that through the Spirit you can say to the body, as the trembling soldier said going over the top, "Come on, old body.  You would shake worse than that if you knew where I am going to take you." It seems to be supposed, by churches everywhere, that believers, young and old, instead of being recruits to Christ's army, arc to be "cradled and coddled, and wheeled in a perambulator to heaven under the caressing smiles of their mother church; whereas as a matter of fact, God no sooner saves a soul than his trumpet-blast calls him to suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (Panton).

In dealing with the subject of self-discipline, it is difficult to escape being stigmatized by some as an ascetic or monk.  The whisper of asceticism frightens the easily frightened.  But while Paul was neither ascetic nor monk, he knew that "the flesh with its affections and lusts" was his most dangerous enemy.  He said: "So fight I, as not beating the air: but I buet my body" --bruise it black and blue, make it livid, every blow striking home (Ellicott)--"and bring it into bondage," i.e, lead it as a captive.  Paul knew his dangers; he never ceased to dread the flesh.  He was balanced indeed and was therefore alert.  He rejoiced, but always "with trembling." One of the Christian workers of the Dohnavur Fellowship on holiday once wrote: "There is such a loving thought and care here that I sometimes fear lest the soldier-spirit may be weakened rather than strengthened.  Everything is made so easy and so comfortable that I feel more than ever the need of the inner, private discipline which defends the soul against sloth and slackness."

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.  When she ceases to bleed, she ceases to bless.  She can thrive through persecution, but never through peace and plenty.  Christ sends not peace, but a sword.  But we have become soft.  We have ceased to be soldiers, have ceased to storm forts, have ceased to sacrifice.  We want spiritual society, not rugged soldiery.  The "soft slipper" stage has taken us.  "I've had my day--now the rocking chair has gotten me." We once held meetings with an old preacher who had been a suffering circuit rider.  He could say, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." But an hour after a most delicious meal he continued to pat himself on his stomach saying, "That was a good meal; it makes me feel so good." Poor soul, his sermons were yellow.  He scarcely looked into his Bible.  He had been a soldier once but he had gone soft, had ceased to "goad" himself.  All of which reminds us again of that word of saintly Robert Murray McCheyne that "if Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of