Holy Communion is sacred; therefore there is no link
between them. Whereas the prayer and the Communion should be the
ennobling and sanctifying power alike of work and play.

Bearing this caution in mind, we shall to-day look at certain features
of the so-called secular life of the day in which discipline needs to be
strongly exercised.

No doubt about it, the soul of the nation has been growing sick, sick
"nigh unto death."

Luxury has been increasing with giant strides; the mad race for pleasure
has helped to empty our Churches, to rob our Charities, to diminish the
number of our Candidates for Holy Orders, to make countless ears deaf to
the call which the country, through that magnificent Christian soldier,
Lord Roberts, and many others, has been making to manhood of the land.
Week-ending, meals in restaurants, turning night into day, have robbed
home-life of its grace and power, and produced a generation of young
folk _blase_ and discontented before they are out of girlhood and
boyhood.

With this has come, inevitably, the loss of sense of responsibility. So
long as I can enjoy myself and get my own way, why should I vex myself
with the outworn question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" No! That has gone
into the limbo of effete superstition.

And further, loss of the sense of proportion. There are some to whom it
causes no moral shock to wear a dress costing a hundred guineas, while a
vast number of seamstresses, shirtmakers, artificial flower makers,
boot-closers, and the like, are working seventy hours for 5s. to 8s. a
week. One mantle-presser, in Dalston, receives 1/2_d._ per mantle;
she is most respectable, has four children, and earns from 5_s._
6_d._ to 7_s._ a week!

We do not grumble at the hundred guineas being spent upon the dress, or
a thousand guineas even, if the money went in due proportion all round
to supply the _full living wage to each one engaged in its production_:
and if the wearer interested herself keenly in social problems, and used
her means wisely and well to afford relief where it was needed. This,
alas! does not happen when the sense of proportion is lacking.

Take another case--alas! a fearfully common one. Men and women will
gamble recklessly at Bridge, lose heavily, pay up, at whatever cost,
because it is _a debt of honour_. All the while a hard-pressed
tailor, a famished dressmaker and her children are kept out of their
money, because it is only _a debt of commerce_. Could there b