An Abused Word

Review and Herald Publishing Assn. · Washington, D. C. · Jan 7, 1904

SELF-SACRIFICE is a plain word which it ought not to be possible to pervert or misunderstand. Nevertheless, the mistake is often made of applying it to an effort to exalt and cultivate one’s own soul—which is but a subtle form of selfishness, after all. A well-known nurse in a book of hospital experiences tells of her troubles in training various “probationers,” and says emphatically:—

“Some had a most exalted idea of leading a life of self-sacrifice, and so took up nursing; and these were almost too heavy a burden for any unfortunate sister to endure. I used to give vent to my feelings by saying: ‘Well, may I ever be preserved from being nursed by anybody who does it as an act of self-denial!’”

“‘O sister! But what can be higher than self-sacrifice?’”

“‘Nothing, perhaps,’ I used to reply; ‘but it must be infinitely pleasanter for patients to feel that whoever is nursing them is feeling a cheerful satisfaction in doing them good, than that it is meritorious to perform an unpleasant duty.’”

There are volumes of wisdom in these plain, practical words. Self-sacrifice is never the real thing until self is forgotten, clean and clear, in loving thought for others. So long as thought of self enters into it, it is a mixed motive, not a single-minded one. When we are noticing our own self-denial, it is not self-denial, but self-approval. When we do a service—no matter how hard—for another with the thought of our own sacrifice uppermost, instead of the thought of the soul we are doing it for, we are not really unselfish, though we may believe we are. Self-forgetting sympathy for others, self-effacing eagerness to help others—these are the signs of that true self-sacrifice which follows in the footsteps of Christ.—Family.