life, and holding every other thing subject to her self-imposed task of
love. And through the years many a fisherman out at sea, and many an
anxious woman watching by hearth and crib, sent up heart-felt thanks to
God for that little, steady light. And many a life was saved, of which no
record could be kept.

That tells the whole story of sacrifice. A need, nobody to meet it; the
need passing into an emergency; and that into the tragedy of an unmet
emergency; a heart sore torn to bleeding by the tragedy thrust bitterly
home; then sacrifice, lifelong, that others might be saved where her loved
one was lost, and still others spared what she herself suffered. And that
story has been repeated with endless variations, and is being repeated, in
every land, on every mission-field, home and foreign, and in almost every
home of all the world.

<u>Sin's Healing Shadow.</u>

Sacrifice has come to be a law of life. Wherever there is sin there will
be a <i>call for sacrifice</i>. For sin makes need, and need intensifies into
emergency. And need and emergency mean sacrifice thrust upon some one in
peril. And they call for sacrifice, volunteered by some one, who would
save the man in peril. And wherever there are true men and women, as well
as need, there will <i>be</i> sacrifice.

And sin is everywhere. Even nature is full of evidence of a bad break in
all of its processes. The finger-marks of decay and death are below and
above and all around in all its domain. That is sin's unmistakable
ear-mark. Man's mental powers, and his loss of a full knowledge of his
powers, tell the same story. And so there is need. Everywhere you turn
need's pathetic face, drawn and white, looks piteously into yours,
pleading mutely for help.

And so there is sacrifice. Sacrifice is sin's healing shadow. It follows
sin at every turn, binding up its wounds, pouring in the oil and wine of
its own life, and taking the hurt victims into its own warm heart. Nothing
worth while has ever been done without sacrifice. Every good thing done
cost somebody his life. The life was given out with a wrench under some
sharp tug. Or it was given in the slower, more painful, more taxing way of
being lingeringly given out through years of steadfast doing or enduring.

Every man who has done something worth while for others has spilled some
of his life-blood into it. His work and name may have become known. Or he
may belong to the larger number of blessed faithfuls wh