To our minds pain seems necessarily connected with sacrifice, but pain proceeds wholly from discord within the sacrificer, i.e. from antagonism between the higher part of his nature which is willing to give, and the lower part whose satisfaction lies in grasping and keeping. The process required in each case is a turning from the selfish, individualistic attitude to that of a social, altruistic giving—a giving joyfully for love’s sake. The transition naturally involves some pain, for the conscious will has to gradually master the animal part of the nature, and subordinate it to the higher self. Man is, in the order of evolution, primarily subject to animal desires. His consciousness moves on the sensuous plane of existence, and he clings to the physical elements in nature. By-and-bye he learns to relinquish an immediate material good for a future good equally material—it may be a greater worldly prosperity for himself or his family. This sacrifice is not essentially noble, but it prepares the way for a harder lesson, and one that calls out a deeper faculty within him. Here again the process is one of exchange, but not of one form of sensuous good for another. It is the exchange of material possessions or sense pleasures for something of an entirely different order in nature—a reward not visible, nay, possibly far off beyond the tomb. When humanity was in its childhood, religion inculcated and pressed upon it this form of sacrifice; and as we ponder the martyr lives that stud the pages of history we recognize the fact that thousands of human beings practised the precept, and learned to endure, as seeing the invisible, to stand morally upright without earthly prop, to value spiritual companionship and joy in an inner life of purity and peace when outward conditions were adverse and dark. A later, far higher phase of the law of sacrifice, is that wherein no reward is thought of, or desired. Reaching manhood, humanity grapples with the duties and accepts all the grave responsibilities of an advanced evolutional stage. Duty becomes the motor of action, self-mastery and love of one’s fellows the very keynotes of man’s music. The animal part of his nature becomes subordinate to the higher self. The third great lesson of sacrifice works within, the lesson, viz. to do right simply because it is right, to give because giving is owed by each to all, and not because giving will in any shape be pleasing to or rewarded by God.