This devotion with which the staff is consecrated to altruistic labor is met by a spirit of buoyant gratitude from those on whom they minister. Our ward is vibrant with it. Perhaps this is not true at the very first. The patient arrives in misery. For a few days he is perhaps made even more miserable. But during this time he is in seclusion and not visible to his comrades. Soon he rallies. In bed or wheel chair he joins other convalescents on the roof terrace. They compare notes over their operations. They settle among themselves all those great pending questions which have been engrossing the active outside world and, looking forward to returning health and strength, a very joyous spirit pervades the group. These not too inviting surroundings abound, therefore, in a hearty thankfulness--a thankfulness abundant and sincere, and not unlike what it would be if it were offered amid solemn rites and with majestic music before the glowing altar of a monastery. But in these early days of seclusion the lonely patient has opportunity for much thinking. Lying in bed in a room which, as a recent writer described it, is richly decorated with a white ceiling, four white walls, a door, a window and a floor, he has indeed time for thought and for thought without distraction. Surrounded as he is by the sick and the maimed, perhaps one of the first subjects on which he is led to ponder is the mystery of Pain. What does it all mean that a God otherwise beneficent should impose on the creatures he has brought into the world illness and suffering? Even Prince Siddartha wondered at it: "Since if, all powerful, he leaves it so, He is not good; and if not powerful, He is not God?" In better mood the patient may wonder whether his personal share of pain is in any sense a penance or atonement for his own past sins. This is a thought which is natural and acceptable perhaps to most minds. But the Saints and Martyrs testifying to their faith went farther and not only submitted to but gladly sought pain and suffering. Now pain and agony well endured undoubtedly strengthen character. Have we not a vivid example of this before us in the catastrophe of the European war; a war which is saved from being wholly evil and dreadful because out of it has come the spiritual regeneration of the allied nations who are engulfed in it? Still it can hardly be expected that ordinary flesh and blood should in this world, so full of love and beauty, invite and seek out suffering and disaster even in order to bear them bravely. Enough for most of us that if doomed to walk with them we "Turn the necessity to glorious gain." But all the same it must be a happy thing for a sufferer if he can hope with the Martyrs that pain borne with fortitude may be offered as a sacrifice and atonement.