man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, constitute
the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived mainly to make
sure of their own personal welfare in another and future condition of
existence, or they who have worked with all their might for their race,
for their country, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, and left
all personal arrangements concerning themselves to the sole charge of
Him who made them and is responsible to himself for their safe-keeping?
Is an anchorite who has worn the stone floor of his cell into basins
with his knees bent in prayer, more acceptable than the soldier who
gives his life for the maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without
thinking what will specially become of him in a world where there are
two or three million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be
cared for? These are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to
those who know that there are many profoundly selfish persons who are
sincerely devout and perpetually occupied with their own future, while
there are others who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves for
any worthy object in this world, but are really too little occupied with
their exclusive personality to think so much as many do about what is to
become of them in another.

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, most certainly, belong to this
latter class. There are several kinds of believers, whose history we
find among the early converts to Christianity.

There was the magistrate, whose social position was such that he
preferred a private interview in the evening with the Teacher to
following him--with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary facts
which had satisfied him that the young Galilean had a divine commission.
But still he cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He was not ready to
accept statements without explanation. That was the right kind of man.
See how he stood up for the legal rights of his Master, when the people
were for laying hands on him!

And again, there was the government official, intrusted with public
money, which, in those days, implied that he was supposed to be honest.
A single look of that heavenly countenance, and two words of gentle
command, were enough for him. Neither of these men, the early disciple,
nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking primarily about his own
personal safety.

But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows
what he was like to be