f it were altogether too elementary for our
refined natures and as if it must have no place in the alchemy of the
spirit. This would be both dangerous and false. _What God hath joined
together, let no man put asunder!_ For, if we once treat body and soul
as ill-matched companions and seek to deal with them apart, instantly
the door is flung open to the old Gnostic horrors of sensualism on the
one side or inhuman mutilation or neglect on the other.

[Footnote 1: Health and Holiness by Francis Thompson.]

The Church, on the other hand, is very clear and insistent that body and
soul make one man as fully as God and Man make one Christ; and she
illustrates and directs these strange co-relations and mutual effects of
these two partners by her steady insistence on such things as Fasting
and Abstinence. And the saints are equally clear and insistent. There
never yet has been a single soul whom the Church has raised to her
altars in whose life bodily austerity in some form has not played a
considerable part. It is true that some have warned us against excess;
but what warnings and what excess! "Be moderate," advises St. Ignatius,
that most reasonable and moderate of all the saints. "Take care that you
do not break any bones with your iron scourge. God does not wish that!"

Pain, then, has a real place in our progress. Who that has suffered can
ever doubt it again?

Let us consider, therefore, under this Word of Christ, whether our
attitude to bodily pain is what God would have it to be. There are two
mistakes that we may be committing. Either we may fear it too
little--meet it, that is to say, with Pagan stoicism instead of with
Christianity--or we may fear it too much. _Despise not the chastening_,
on one side, _or faint_ on the other. It is surely the second warning
that is most needed now. For pain had a real place in Christ's programme
of life. He fasted for forty days at the beginning of His Ministry, and
He willed every shocking detail of the Praetorium and Calvary at the
end. He told us that _His Spirit willed it_ and, yet more kindly, that
_His Flesh was weak_. He revealed, then, that He really suffered and
that He willed it so.... _I thirst._

THE SIXTH WORD

_It is consummated._

He has finished _His Father's business_, He has dealt with sinners and
saints, and has finally disclosed to us the secrets of the Soul and the
Body of His that are the hope of both sinners and saints alike. And
there is no mor