ay in self-indulgent gossip
and games. You must do what others do, and yet you must have a clear plan
of the reading and prayer and thinking which is right for you personally.
If you cannot do it at one time on Sunday, find another, or else get it
done on Saturday. Nearly every one could find time for Sunday duties, only
you would rather not, because they are dull. I am not surprised, it is not
natural to like them till the spiritual nature is alive in you, but that
will never be until you force yourself to take this spiritual food as a
duty, or rather, as essential to your life.

"A Sabbath well spent
Brings a week of content
And strength for the toils of the morrow."

Those are very old words by Sir Matthew Hale: I know them framed in the
hall of an old-fashioned country house, and they bring back to me rest and
quiet, and sweet sounds and scents--the bowl of roses and the pretty old
chintz on the sofa just under the words.

I hope Sunday-like Sundays are not only to be found in old houses, but we
all feel that Sunday quiet is likely to be the first thing sacrificed in
the rush and bustle of modern life. But if we have no time to eat, we
cannot keep up to working pitch, we lose vitality: if we have no time for
spiritual food, our souls lose vitality, and unfortunately starvation of
the soul is a painless process, so we may unconsciously be getting weaker
and weaker spiritually.

You are regularly on your knees night and morning, but are you ever two
minutes alone with God?--and yet "being silent to God"--alone with
Him--is, humanly speaking, the only condition on which He can "mould
us."[5] I am so afraid that the lawful pleasures and even the commanded
duties of life, let alone its excitements and cravings, will eat out your
possibilities of spirituality and saintliness: it is so easy to float on
the stream of life with others--so terribly hard to come, you yourself,
alone into a desert place to listen to those words out of the mouth of
God, by which only your individual life can be fed. The self-denials of
Lent are comparatively easy, but to gain that quietness, which Bishop Gore
says is "the essence of Lent," is a hard struggle at all times of the
year. Do not let any one think, "this is all very well for quiet homes,
but I cannot be expected to act on it, since 'the week-end' is always so
busy." It would be very unpractical to say, day after day, "I cannot be
expected, for this and that excellent r