The Argosy — page 307: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Of Self-Sacrifice. : 291 that abode of harmony which all homes should be: giving up one to the other. To those who have never tried it, cultivated or practised it, it will be a difficult matter at the outset. Nothing is so hard as for a selfish man to put away self. Self, self, self, has been so constantly the watchword and key-note of his life, that it comes uppermost in all cases ; an object which pervades more or less every action; a weed choking the good seed that, let us hope, is lurking in every heart, ready to take root and spring up. It is an evil (o which men are far more prone than women. Taken in the aggregate, men are essentially and exceedingly selfish ; women self-sacrificing, bearing in silence, yielding. To the shame of men be it spoken. They, the stronger, should be ready to put forth all the greatness of character which by their very strength is able to shine forth in them. They should be self-forgetful, not only towards women, but towards each other ; seeking each other’s good, promoting each other’s welfare. I would that each man reading these words should examine his own heart. If he sees lurking there the demon of selfishness : and so spoilt and petted are many of us from youth upwards that it often lurks there unknown and unsuspected until accident or something else points out to us: if he finds lurking within him the hideous demon—one of the most hateful sins of our fallen nature—let him strive his utmost to cast it out. A great struggle will ensue; it may be a long one: but as no man ever fought in vain who fights earnestly and in the right way, so will he in the end gain the crown of victory. No selfish man or woman was ever yet completely happy. They may cheat themselves into a belief that they are, for thought and con- science are lost in the mad whirl and rush of life. But it is a mere delusive happiness, which disappears at the moment we think to clutch it; and, like the wily ignis-fatuus, leads us an endless dance over bog and moor, to escape us at last. Then, weary and spent, we lie down: and perchance that most terrible experience, the remorse of a wasted and misapplied life, comes in and takes possession of us for ever. The spirit of self-sacrifice is one of the great beauties of holiness. Husband yielding to wife, wife to husband; brother to brother, sister to sister ; friend to friend : in great things ; but in small especially, First and foremost, see that the spirit is with you at home; then carry it abroad into the world. It is a spirit that will sweeten happiness and lighten trouble ; and when the soul is ready to wing its flight to its eternal home, it wil! have the unspeakable consolation of knowing that it has not lived to itself ; that it has left the world happier and better in some degree than it found it; that it has been faithful to its earthly mis sion. So will it listen with ‘unutterable bliss to the sentence af Well done, thou good and faithful servant: enter thou into ‘the joy of thy 1» Lord! comichooks.comn