iced, burned on the altar of consecration, consumed in the hot
flames of love, that our work becomes really our best, a fit offering
to be made to our King.

We must not fear that in such sacrifice, such renunciation and
annihilation of self, we shall lose ourselves. God will remember every
deed of love, every forgetting of self, every emptying out of life.
Though we work in obscurest places, where no human tongue shall ever
voice our praise, still there is a record kept, and some day rich and
glorious reward will be given. Is not God's praise better than man's?

"Ungathered beauties of a bounteous earth,
Wild flowers which grow on mountain-paths untrod.
White water-lilies looking up to God
From solitary tarns--and human worth
Doing meek duty that no glory gains,
Heroic souls in secret places sown,
To live, to suffer, and to die unknown--
Are not that loveliness and all these pains
Wasted? Alas, then does it not suffice
That God is on the mountain, by the lake,
And in each simple duty, for whose sake
His children give their very blood as price?
The Father sees. If this does not repay,
What else? For plucked flowers fade and praises slay."

Mary's ointment was wasted when she broke the vase and poured it upon
her Lord. Yes; but suppose she had left the ointment in the unbroken
vase? What remembrance would it then have had? Would there have been
any mention of it on the Gospel pages? Would her deed of careful
keeping have been told over all the world? She broke the vase and
poured it out, lost it, sacrificed it, and now the perfume fills all
the earth. We may keep our life if we will, carefully preserving it
from waste; but we shall have no reward, no honor from it, at the last.
But if we empty it out in loving service, we shall make it a lasting
blessing to the world, and we shall be remembered forever.

CHAPTER II.

LAID ON GOD'S ALTAR.

"My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it,
And he bestows it upon all the race;
I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it;
I hold it close, but only to expend it;
Accept it, Lord, for others, through thy grace."

We have to die to live. That is the central law of life. We must burn
to give light to the world, or to give forth odor of incense to God's
praise. We cannot save ourselves and at the same time make anything
worthy of our life, or be in any deep and true sense an honor to God