SELF-SACRIFICE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 443, 3 January 1867, Page 2 (Supplement)

SELF-SACRIFICE.

[Buskin's " Ethics of the Dust.”] t Thb will of God respecting us is that we 1 should live by each other’s happiness and * life, not by each other’s misery and death. ■ I made you read that verse which so | chocked you just now, because the relations i of parent and child are typical of all beau- ] tiful human help. A child may hare to i die for its parents; but the purpose of 1 Heaven is that it shall rather live for them, 1 —that not by its sacrifice, but by its ' strength, its joy, its force of being, it ] (hall be to them renewal of strength, and i as tho arrow in the hand of the giant. So i it is in all other right relations. Men i help each other by their joy, not by their ] Borrow. They are not intended to slay I themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the j many apparently beautiful things that , turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, , lam not sure but that the thoughtlessly i meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good i men must be named as one of the fatalest. i They have so often been taught that there 1 is a virtue in mere suffering, as such, and j foolishly to hope that good may be brought | by Heaven out of all on which Heaven ! has set the stamp of evil that wo may i avoid it,—tuat they accept pain and defeat as if they were their appointed portion ; never understanding that their de- 1 feat is not the less to be mourned because ! it is more fatal to their enemies than to them. Tho one thing that a good man , has to do, and to see done, is justice; he : is neither to slay himself nor others causelessly ; so far from denying himself, s'ace be is pleased by good, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And 1 only wish there were strength, fidelity, and tense enough among the good Englishmen of the day, to render it possible for them to band together in avowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength cf heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who come within their Sphere. And anally, fur your own teaching, observe, although there may bo need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of character, the moment the character is formed the selfdenial ceases. Nothing is really well done which it costs you pain to do. “ But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to please others, and not ourselves ?" My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right life, we must cordially and reciprocally cubiuit and surrender in all kind and courteous and affectionate ways; and these submissions and ministries to each other, of which you “ ill know (none better) the practice and tho prociousncss, are as good for the yielder as the receiver, —they strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real sacrifice of all our strength or life or bappiuess to others (though it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier gives his life in battle) is yet always a mournful and momentary necessity, not the fulfilment of tho continuous law of being. Self-sacrifice, which is sought after and triumphed in, is usually foolish, and calamitous in its issue; and by the sentimental proclamation and pursuit of it, good people hare not only made most of I heir own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion ao hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips, pretends to teach every man to “ love his neighbor as himself,” with its hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast, and practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people’s labor. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to hSs fellows is to ascertain his own special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others. A/O yOu iiiiliii Iluau WOUiu have helped tho world belter by denying himself, and sot painting, or Casella by denying himself, and not singing ? The real virtue is to be ready tc iir.gthc sterna;;: peoples* S=_ Mho was. in ~1l -■ Uhc very word f ‘ virtue” means not “ conduct,” but ~ strength,” vital energy in the heart-