THE DISCIPLINE OF SACRIFICE.
WE have often thought that one of the grand results of foreign missions is in the character developed in the missionaries by the work. When the young man leaves us for his foreign field, he seems not superior in character to many of his brethren at home. But when he returns to visit us, after fifteen or twenty years of labor for the heathen, we behold a man discreet, just, holy, temperate, of large views, calm faith, resolute purpose, abounding love. To this rule we have met hardly any exception. We conclude that it is a blessed work to preach Christ to the heathen. The sacrifice which the man has made for Jesus Christ has been the means of disciplining him to what you see. And all discipline implies sacrifice. Abraham must give up Isaac before he could be the tried father of the faithful. Moses must give up the treasures of Egypt, and tend sheep in the desert, that he might be fitted to lead out Israel. Our Lord Jesus himself "learned obedience from the things that he suffered." It seems impossible for a man to get any real heart-learning without suffering. Prometheus was the wisest hero of the Greek mythology. He was also the greatest sufferer. Christian experience, then, must be, in a great degree, connected with giving up for Christ's sake. The rich and amiable young man who said to the Lord, "What lack I yet?" was informed that he lacked one thing. He needed to sell all that he had, and sacrifice all to the poor. If he had done this, it would have been an act of faith that would have formed Christ in him. Sometimes one supreme moment of sacrifice will avail as much to deepen character as a long period of ordinary life. What a different man was Jacob, it has been remarked, after one night of wrestling with God! The six hundred of Balaklava, by their own act of splendid obedience, did more to train themselves and others to military performance, than could have been effected by a year of "reveille bugles" and sham fights. The lesson of submission to the will of God—539how well that lesson may be learned by a Christian mother, in some moment of agonizing prayer at the bed-side of her dying child. And even thus we may regard Gethsemane itself as the necessary discipline to fit the Redeemer for Golgotha. After that season of full and absolute sacrifice of his own will to the Father's, Jesus was prepared to endure the cross and despise the shame. It is somewhat on this principle that we come to value things in proportion to what they have cost us. In the people of the United States, for instance, how strong is the sense of nationality at this time. The tremendous sacrifices by which that nationality was maintained, have trained the people to such a valuing of the amity of the States as could not otherwise be gained. In the commercial realm, a thing is worth what it costs us. Mary's alabaster box was of more value than three hundred pence, and she deepened her experience more by lavishing the ointment on her Lord, than she could have done by saving her property. We all know that the lasting things in the kingdom of Christ are wrought by men who have made great sacrifices. In the words of a spiritual writer, "It is a part of the determined counsel of heaven, that no one shall succeed except he goeth forth weeping. David could not sit firmly on his throne, till he had been hunted as a partridge on the mountains. The handfuls of corn on Calvary could not be spread abroad until the cross had borne the victim. The martyred disciples' blood must bedew the earth before the apostles could sow the seed. The missionaries in the East must first weep over the printing works consumed by fire before the Bible could spread there."—Watchman.