On the other hand obedience to duty, when it involves pain and self-abnegation, seems to rise in the general estimation. Clearly because in this instance even the suspicion of interested motives is removed, since hardship, injury in estate and happiness, and even the possible loss of life, are among the foreseen consequences of the act. It is for this reason that the Book of Martyrs has become the golden book of mankind, and that the story of their lives never fails to fill us with mingled sorrow, and admiration, and pride. They are monuments on the field of history, milestones on the path of human progress. We regard them and gain new courage and confidence in our better selves. The blazing pyre on the Campo Fiore, whereon Giordano Bruno breathes his last, becomes a beacon-light for the truth-seeker; the dying Socrates still pours benignant peace over many a sufferer's couch; the Man of sorrows, on Calvary, comforts the hearts of the Christian millions. In the presence of these high examples the inadequacy of the selfish standard becomes clearly apparent. We recognize what a sublime quality that is in man which enables him, not only to triumph over torment and suffering, but to devote his very self to destruction for the sake of honor and truth. Freely must virtue be wooed, not for the dowry she may bring; by loyal devotion to her for her own sake only, can she be won! If thus it appears that not only is there nothing in the nature of virtue to warrant a claim to reward, but that it is her very nature to disclaim any reward, it will become plain that the problem, as stated in the beginning, rests upon an entirely false foundation. That the unrighteous and unprincipled should enjoy temporal happiness, does not offend the law of justice. That you, my good sir, honest in all your dealings, truthful in all your acts, should be unhappy, is greatly to be deplored. Why evil and unhappiness should have been allowed at all to enter a world created by an all good and all powerful Being may fairly be asked. Why those who possess the treasure of a clear conscience should not also possess the lesser goods of earth, is a question with which morality is in no wise concerned. Virtue can have no recompense, save as it is its own recompense, and vice can receive no real punishment save as it is its own avenger. The hope of immortality, in so far as it is based upon the supposed necessity of righting in a future state what is here wrong, is therefore untenable, for it is based upon the assumption of a wrong which exists in the imagination merely. _And he who claims a reward because of his virtue, has thereby forfeited his right to maintain the claim, since that is not virtue, which looks for reward._ *****