Denunciations of selfishness are always in order, but its boundaries are not so easily defined. Self-love—the instinctive desire or tendency that leads one to seek to promote his own well-being, a due care for one’s own happiness, essential to high endeavor and perfectly compatible with justice, generosity, and benevolence—is a component part of our nature, and must be carefully safeguarded. To talk about its annihilation or eradication is to talk foolishness; and to attempt such eradication is to fly in the face of nature; that is, of God. The whole question, then, between selfishness and self-love is one of degree and adjustment and relative rights. No absolute hard-and-fast line can be drawn. One must use his best judgment, enlightened from all possible sources, as to what in any given case duty to self and duty to others demands. And that judgment he must follow, even when it materially differs from the opinion of those who may criticise his conduct. There is no virtue in wasting one’s self on impossible tasks. Self-sacrifice is never ethical if it be a willful spending of self to no purpose. One may do a serious wrong to himself, and confer no real good on any one else, by following the lead of generous, uncalculating, unthinking impulses. The exhortation never to think about one’s self is thoroughly mischievous, and can only lead to fanaticism and discouragement. Self-control, not self-annihilation or extirpation, is the duty of the Christian. A man has perfect self-control when his highest powers hold the lower in subjection with perfect ease, and are themselves in complete harmony with the will of God. He is perfectly free from selfishness who gives to self only that degree of attention and care which is due, and in no way infringes on any of the rights of others. And he who is keenly desirous of doing this, bearing in mind his natural bias the wrong way, will deem it the safer course to go a little beyond what may seem the due limit. But it is not selfish to be manly, or to insist on being permitted to work out one’s calling according to the clear, conscious summons from on high. Self-will so much inveighed against is right, since it is a necessary component part of selfhood. Without self-will and self-consciousness there can be no self; in other words, we cease to be, and are non-existent. Masterfulness should be distinguished from willfulness; the former is not sinful, but a most desirable thing in this world where leadership is so essential to progress. A selfish will, one at any point divergent from the will of God, so far as we know or can ascertain, is always wrong. To tell where egoism ends and altruism begins in our relations with our fellow-men is far from easy; but it is ever blessed to become absorbed in a great cause, and supremely noble to have as the highest object in life the glory of God.