s active mind
devised a plan for making these rooms more comfortable for the next
occupant, and though opposed by the indolence and prejudices of the
people about him, he contrived secretly to procure a quarter of a bushel
of lime and a brush, and, by rising very early, and bribing his
attendant to help him, contrived to have the place completely purified.
Now his object in thus exposing himself to infection and disease was not
that he might gratify some crotchet, or get a name with the world, but
that from personal experience of the unutterable miseries of such places
as these lazarettos were, he might be better able to suggest the needful
improvements and remedies. This he had set before himself as his work;
to this he believed that duty called him; and that was enough for him.
Suffering, sickness, death, they were as nothing to him when weighed in
the balance against high and holy duty."

"A noble hero indeed, dear auntie," cried Walter; "and now for another
of the same sort."

"Well, my dear boy, my second example embraces many excellent men, all
devoted to the same self-denying and self-sacrificing work,--I am now
alluding to the Moravian missionaries. These truly heroic men, not
counting their lives dear, left home and friends, not to visit sunny
lands, where the charms of the scenery might in a measure make up for
the toils and privations they had to undergo, nor to find among Arctic
frosts and snows at any rate pure and refreshing breezes, though many of
them did go forth into these inclement regions to carry the gospel of
peace with them, and in so doing to endure the most terrible hardships.
But the Moravians I am now speaking of are those who volunteered to
enter the pest-houses and infected places from which they could never
come forth again. Here they lived, and here they died, giving up every
earthly comfort and attraction that they might set gospel truth before
those whose infected and repulsive bodies made them objects of terror
and avoidance to all but those self-renouncing followers of their
Saviour. Here, indeed, moral courage has reached its height."

"How wonderful!" said Julia thoughtfully, and with a sigh; "_I_ could
never have done it."

"No," said Miss Huntingdon; "nor does God commonly require such service
from us. And yet, dear Julia, ladies as tenderly brought up as yourself
have gone forth cheerfully to little short of certain death from
pestilential airs, and have neither shrunk no