soul, their life unto their task, how much more so, in the work of spreading the kingdom of God! The martyrs because they died and with their blood fertilized the ground, bore increase a hundredfold, for their spirits, released and diffused abroad through their example, spread about a very epidemic of faith and hope and love. By such means, too, must our own salvation be procured, for unless we rise superior to self we shall never accomplish our highest destiny. " He that loveth his life shall lose it," says Christ, " and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal." Our tendency is to load ourselves down with good things of earth, whereas, to wrestle successfully with Satan, we must be as abstemious and as thinly clad as an athlete. It is the heavy load on the rich man's back that makes the way to heaven appear to him so steep and the gate so narrow. The one argument against salvation for the majority is the amount of selfishness in the world, and Christ's threat that whoever loves his life here shall lose it hereafter. For no man, whose efforts in the work of salvation began and ended in himself ever did, or ever can, reach heaven. Faith is all very well, but it is not enough, for Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example to be followed. The true economy of salvation, therefore, is to save ourselves by sacrificing self for the salvation of others. Woe to him who approaches his Judge single-handed and alone. Like the wicked servant who hid his talent in a napkin, his master will order him to be cast into exterior darkness. Our work, whether it be the suppression of
