"I bought a Bible for Fred Phillips. He didn't have a good Bible, and I thought he needed one more than you and the boys needed expensive presents." "But why didn't you tell your father?" "Because Fred was ashamed not to be able to buy the Bible for himself, and he wouldn't take mine until I had promised that I wouldn't tell anybody that I had given it to him. Since Fred has moved to Boston, I feel he wouldn't care if I told you. I want you to know, for I just heard to-day that Fred has joined the church. Isn't that good news?" "Yes, indeed. Perhaps your giving him the Bible helped him to do it, too. Charles, when you get to be a man, do you suppose you will always be so careless of how others may misunderstand you?" "I am not careless of that now," he declared. "The desire to be popular is one of the things I have to fight against all the time." What shall we choose? Comfort of service? Ease, or honorable performance of duty? The desire for popularity, or the purpose to be of use? Service is the best way to find comfort; honorable performance of duty is the sure road to the only ease worth while, and thoughtfulness for others is the open sesame to popularity. There is nothing new in this statement. It is only one of the thousand and one possible applications of the lesson taught by the great Teacher when He said, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." CHAPTER FIVE _COURAGE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS_ FROM Norway comes a moving tale of a lighthouse keeper. One day he went to the distant shore for provisions. A storm arose, and he was unable to return. The time for lighting the lamp came, and Mary, the elder child, said to her little brother, "We must light the lamp, Willie." "How can we?" was his question. But the two children climbed the long narrow stairs to the tower where the lamp was kept. Mary pulled up a chair and tried to reach the lamp in the great reflector; it was too high. Groping down the stairs she ascended again with a small oil lamp in her hand. "I can hold this up," she said. She climbed on the chair again, but still the reflector was just beyond her reach. "Get down," said Willie, "I know what we can do." She jumped down and he stretched his little body across the chair. "Stand on me," he said. And she stood on the little fellow as he lay across the chair. She raised the lamp high, and its light shone far out across the water. Holding it first with one hand, then with the other, to rest her little arms, she called down to her brother, "Does it hurt you, Willie?" "Of course it hurts," he called back, "but keep the light burning."