In other words, it has been taught that the man who injures his health by debauchery is guilty of a serious moral offence, and he who commits suicide is guilty of a crime; but that, on the other hand, the man who sacrifices his health in the performance of his duty as physician, clergyman, or soldier, or in endeavoring to save a fellow-creature from flood or fire, or who gives up life itself rather than forswear himself or renounce his religious faith, or commit a base or unclean action, is not only exonerated from any guilt, but is, in the highest degree, virtuous. On these lines, Christian civilization may be said to have been built up. The natural selfishness of human nature has been counteracted by the sense of duty; and if, now and then, needless and exaggerated self-sacrifices without adequate reason have been made, and there was room for brave Charles Kingsley to preach the claims of the natural laws of life, a thousand times more often has the sense of duty enabled men and women to perform alike the painful daily tasks whereby our homes are made beautiful and sacred, and the occasional acts of heroism wherewith human existence on earth is crowned and glorified. It needs no words to prove to any one who reflects that two-thirds of what we have been wont to reverence as homely virtue and all the martyrdoms of history consist precisely in the voluntary sacrifice of health, or of health and life together. To withhold from such sacrifices the meed of moral admiration would be to reverse the judgment of all the ages,--to prefer Sardanapalus and Heliogabalus to Curtius and Regulus, and to treat as a deluded fanatic the apostle who converted the Gentile world, but spent his years in perils by sea and land amid prisons and scourgings. From the crucifixion of Christ to the silent self-immolation of the poor consumptive girl who works half-blinded through the winter’s night to support her aged mother, the holiest and the sweetest things this earth has witnessed have been the actions of those who counted not their lives dear to them, so long as they could obey the law of truth, of righteousness, and of love.