possession in order to gain increased material
prosperity, and sacrifices were made in charity to men and in offerings
to Deities, as we may read in the scriptures of the Hindus, the
Zoroastrians, the Hebrews, indeed all the world over. The man gave up
something he valued to insure future prosperity to himself, his family,
his community, his nation. He sacrificed in the present to gain in the
future. Secondly, came a lesson a little harder to learn; instead of
physical prosperity and worldly good, the fruit to be gained by
sacrifice was celestial bliss. Heaven was to be won, happiness was to
be enjoyed on the other side of death--such was the reward for
sacrifices made during the life led on earth.

A considerable step forward was made when a man learned to give up the
things for which his body craved for the sake of a distant good which he
could not see nor demonstrate. He learned to surrender the visible for
the invisible, and in so doing rose in the scale of being; for so great
is the fascination of the visible and the tangible, that if a man be
able to surrender them for the sake of an unseen world in which he
believes, he has acquired much strength and has made a long step towards
the realisation of that unseen world. Over and over again martyrdom has
been endured, obloquy has been faced, man has learned to stand alone,
bearing all that his race could pour upon him of pain, misery, and
shame, looking to that which is beyond the grave. True, there still
remains in this a longing for celestial glory, but it is no small thing
to be able to stand alone on earth and rest on spiritual companionship,
to cling firmly to the inner life when the outer is all torture.

The third lesson came when a man, seeing himself as part of a greater
life, was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole, and so
became strong enough to recognise that sacrifice was right, that a part,
a fragment, a unit in the sum total of life, should subordinate the part
to the whole, the fragment to the totality. Then he learned to do right,
without being affected by the outcome to his own person, to do duty,
without wishing for result to himself, to endure because endurance was
right not because it would be crowned, to give because gifts were due to
humanity not because they would be repaid by the Lord. The hero-soul
thus trained was ready for the fourth lesson: that sacrifice of all the
separated fragment possesses is to be offered because t