“Lent is a sort of gymnasium for character. It trains the will. It makes us morally strong. In Lent we do without some things we like and which in other seasons we might properly enjoy; and the practice makes us able to say “No” to some things we like and ought not to have.
In the store window is some candy; in your mouth is a “sweet tooth” watering for it; in your pocket is money to pay for the sugar-plums. But you have made up your mind to do without candy in Lent. So you pass on and give your nickel to the Sunday School or the Church, that it may do good to other children than yourself. Every time you do that you are getting more and more control over yourself and growing in the habit of unselfishness.
When you grow up you may have to face some great temptation; or some chance to do a nobly generous deed will come to you. What will make you a hero or a saint, when other men or women are weak and fail, is the gymnasium you put your soul through in what you will then feel were the dear old Lents of your childhood.”
Lewis Burton (1852-1940), Episcopal Bishop of Lexington in Lent: The Holy Season (Washington, D.C.: Neale Publishing Company, 1902) 143-145.