Book of Discipline

“ You know that you were made for discipline. And the discipline of life is the learning of the things God wishes us to know, even in hardest ways. But He is in the things we must learn, and in the ways we learn them. There is a marginal reading of the first chapter of the revised version of the Gospel of St. John which conveys my meaning: ‘That which hath been made was life in Him, and the life [or, as some commentators read, and I prefer it, simply life] was the light of men.’ That is, before Christ’s coming the light of men was in the experience to be gained in the lives He gave them. ”

“ I cannot forbear here to point out, further, that the truth in regard to mental discipline appears to be a universal truth or law of human activity, perhaps of all activity. Discipline is an incidental result of right exercise. ”

“ It is reasonable, even reassuring, that hard work and discipline should be needed for this: that it should demand of you, if not the renunciation of the cloister, at least the virtues of the golf course. ”

“ Discipline, habit, and character, appear to be activity crystallized in seeking adaptation to our environments. What is the truth that stands out in relief? Clearly, that character, habit, and discipline, are the reflex upon ourselves of activity, moral, mental, or physical. Whence it seems to follow that useless or vicious activity will appear as useless or vicious character and discipline. ”

“ The preciousness of Discipline when we see God's Holy Hand in the discipline, the preciousness of Knowledge when we see in it a schooling by God in things which at the bottom of them are of God, these are the truths which we have reached: we have seen that these are the secrets of all true authority, and true education; we have claimed for Christian Schools that these are their double foundation: we have seen too how these should mould the homes of Christian children. But they have their word of counsel for every life and every soul. Are we not all our lives under discipline? ”

“ I think we meet this fact everywhere out of the schools, that discipline is not sought as an end. The idea of discipline for its own sake was asceticism in religion. Men sought moral excellence by retiring from the world, and contemplating the things within them. The same idea of discipline led men to look for knowledge within themselves, instead of seeking it by observing things around them. ”

“ Under discipline we must be, some of it, as we think, just, some of it unjust or seeming so: truths and doctrines checking our thoughts; rules checking our wishes; the wills of others, their selfishness or their necessities or their comfort hampering and limiting us, want of money or health or time hindering us from what we would do; bereavement and trouble taking from us what we would keep; our path and our fortune shaped for us, more perhaps than we shape it for ourselves. Is all this discipline certainly good for us? ”

“ Discipline—still a synonym for decency, for civilisation, for religion, in the average parent's mind—was enforced, not pitilessly, as aforetime, but with firmness, and as a rule in moderate and reasonable ways. ”

“ Any mind is disciplined in a subject in which independent intellectual initiative and control have been achieved. Discipline represents original native endowment turned through gradual exercise into effective power.... Discipline is positive and constructive. Discipline, however, is frequently regarded as something negative—as a painfully disagreeable forcing of mind away from channels congenial to it into channels of constraint, a process grievous at the time, but necessary as preparation for a more or less remote future. ”

“ What is discipline? Why, it's standing the gaff—standing it, not submitting to it. It's accepting the facts of life—of your own life, as they happen to be. It isn't being conquered by them. It's not making masters of them, but servants to the underlying things you want. ”

“ And certainly discipline is not only the removall of disorder, but if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very visible shape and image of vertue, whereby she is not only seene in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she walkes, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortall eares. ”

“ Take up the discipline, lest ye perish from the right way,” as if they should say, “We will not serve the Lord, nor keep His discipline; do you do it in your turn, lest, like us, ye perish from the way which opens the heavenly realms to those who{54} follow righteousness.” ”

“ Discipline, discipline, discipline, {86} self-discipline—obedience to 'orders.' Oh! how I long to have the power to realise these! Pray for me that I may; that you may, pray also. Be very strict with yourself. Compel yourself to obey rules. You are hurting so many besides yourself when you are not strict with yourself. For we are 'one body.' You are injuring those whom you like best, for you have less power over them, when you have less power over yourself—less power to influence, to pray, to thank for them. ”

“ Of course the fragmentary sentence in our second text needs to be completed from the context, and so completed will stand, 'God chastens us for our profit, that we should be partakers of His holiness.' Now let us consider for a moment the thought that the true meaning of life is discipline. I say discipline rather than 'chastening,' for chastening simply implies the fact of pain, whereas discipline includes the wholesome purpose of pain. The true meaning of life is not to be found by estimating its sorrows or its joys, but by trying to estimate the effects of either upon us. ”

“ Thus the mind and character may be trained to an almost perfect discipline, and enabled to act with a grace, spirit, and liberty, almost incomprehensible to those who have not passed through a similar experience.
Everything that we learn is the mastery of a difficulty; and the mastery of one helps to the mastery of others. ”

“ It is upon that discipline chiefly that those qualities which I have called the moral qualities of the personal order, and which have their root in truthfulness and courage, depend for their evolution. ”

“ Discipline is not irksome to the Truth-lover, and he will find the infinite patience which can wait and work and overcome. As the joy of the gardener who sees his flowers develop day by day, so is the joy of the man of discipline who sees the divine flowers of Purity, Wisdom, Compassion, and Love, grow up in his heart. ”

“ It disciplines the body for the sake of the soul; it disciplines the soul for the sake of the body. Now it tightens, now it relaxes, the human bow. For example, in the Table of Feasts and Fasts, it lays down one principle which underlies all bodily and spiritual discipline—the need of training to obtain self-control. ”

“ The physique, the temper, the disposition, the career, the affections, the aspirations of a man are all, more or less, the outcome of the discipline his parents have brought him under, or of the lawlessness they have allowed.
Discipline is not Punishment––What is discipline? Look at the word; there is no hint of punishment in it. A disciple is a follower, and discipline is the state of the follower; the learner, imitator. Mothers and fathers do not well to forget that their children are, by the very order of Nature, their disciples. ”

“ Many others have committed the same error, led astray by the different meanings of the word discipline, which may be applied both to regular conduct founded on the deepest feelings of the soul or to a merely external restraint. ”

“ All discipline must be in the name of Jesus, and in the spirit of God; all discipline that violates that name, and is contrary to that Spirit, is opposed to the character of Him, who came not to judge but to save; not to be served, but to wash the feet of his disciples all that is antagonistic to the spirit of grace, of truth, and of love, that dwells in him who is born of God, is a discipline that God abhors, and for which he will exercise a judgment even here that the wise shall understand, though the fool may stumble at it. ”

“ If it is true that discipline bears this close and vital relation to human progress, then it is indeed a topic for the closest and most careful study. Before the reader can judge for himself of the claims made, he must know more of the nature of the discipline for which so much is claimed. ”

“ It is then admitted, inevitably, that the discipline, the correction, the improvement, the maturation of this spiritual being to the highest attainable degree, is the great object to be desired by men, for themselves and one another. That is to say, that knowledge, cultivation, salutary exercise, wisdom, all that can conduce to the perfection of the mind, form the state in which it is due to man's nature that he should be endeavored to be placed. ”

“ The first essential then in a religious character is, that it be the subject of discipline; of discipline varying in the intensity of its struggles; in the difficulty, the amount, the protraction of its efforts, according to the natural differences of individuals, but always discipline; self-knowledge and self-control, strong in its formed purpose, resolute in pursuing it. ”

“ Then, Discipline was in Force, and Virtue Flourish'd, and People lived up to their Profession. And as for the Persons, they are beyond all exception. Their Station, their Learning, and Sufficiency was very Considerable ”

“ that the right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities. ”

“ By discipline I suppose we mean the subordination of the self to something outside of the self, or, at least, the subordination of the self to law, even though that law be self-made. The psychologist could explain to you that the law of habit is the controlling factor in all discipline. The thing that has been done many times is finally done with ease, is perhaps done automatically. ”

“ When we learn what knowledge is most valuable, the habit or discipline incidentally acquired in seeking that knowledge will, no doubt, be the discipline which will aid most in seeking and applying other valuable knowledge throughout the whole course of life. ”

“ I do not speak now of the intellectual discipline which may be required from each of us to meet the difficulties of this day—that is outside of my present subject; but there is a moral discipline quite as important as the intellectual. ”

“ He distinguishes three elements in the process of attaining goodness—nature, learning, discipline. [241] He distinguishes those who discipline themselves in wisdom by means of actual works, from those who have only a literary and intellectual knowledge of it. [242] He holds that the greatest and most numerous blessings that a man can have come from the gymnastic of moral efforts. ”

“ But then these thoughts do not conduct immediately to an issue, they require to work themselves out; and I believe that they work themselves out very often a great deal better by being left to themselves. But then we must recollect that such results as these are only produced in the mind which has been trained and disciplined; and that training and discipline are the result of the control of the Will over the mental processes, just as in the early part of the lecture I spoke to you of the act of speech as made possible by the control which the will has over the muscles of breathing. ”

“ The education of the citizen is to commence with the body: next the irrational portion of the soul is to be brought under discipline — that is, the will and the appetites, the concupiscent and irascible passions: thirdly, the rational portion of the soul is to be cultivated and developed. ”

“ I know of no discipline under the care of a thoughtful instructor so fitting for educating the reason, quickening the moral sense, refining the sensibilities, fashioning the manners, ennobling the character, as exercises in the Socratic dialectic: opening the whole armory of gifts, it sharpens and polishes these for the victories of life. ”

“ It is for discipline that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father doth not discipline? (Hebrews 121-7) . To use or to refuse this idea of the educative opportunity in suffering makes an amazing difference to life. Says a commentator of the older school writing upon this passage in Proverbs: “First, Despise not the discipline.... Do not meet sorrow by a mere hardihood of nature. Let your heart flow down under trouble, for this is human: let it rise up also to God, for this is divine. And secondly, Faint not.... ”

“ We are rather inclined to refer the fact in question to some peculiar structure of mind—possibly to its activity—perhaps occasioned by lack of early discipline—one fancy thrusting forth another, and occupying its place. ”

“ Discipline is mainly promoted by a careful regard to acts of small individual moment. The subjecting of trivial acts to moral considerations, is the sure, and the only mode of self-culture. These acts are embryo habits, and we may often see clearly the moral character of a habit, when the single act seems indifferent. ”

“ Discipline, therefore, is the great need of our time. It should be the first object of education. By it we mean something much more than the mental training about which we used to hear so much. We mean training of thought, feeling, and emotions, so as to apprehend and appreciate all things correctly; and habits of self-control so as to hold one's self within the limits which enable free men in a free society to live in harmony and pursue their ends successfully without encroaching on each other. ”

“ Also, powers of doing fine ornamental work are only to be reached by a perpetual discipline of the hand as well as of the fancy; discipline as attentive and painful as that which a juggler has to put himself through, to overcome the more palpable difficulties of his profession. ”

“ That natural dispositions and talents (such as imagination and wit) , which ask a free and unlimited development, require in many respects the corrective influence of discipline, every one will readily grant. ”