It is too sadly true that we can have nearly everything that the world can give, if we are willing to make the necessary exchange. But it is also true that we can have nearly everything that is worth-while—that is of abiding and eternal value—if We are willing to pay the price of sacrifice and renouncement. It may mean that we must travel a hard way and carry a cross, but we shall find the way of the Cross is the way to the way to the crown. It may mean hardship and difficulty at the moment that we must deny self, and spend ourselves in the service of others, but if we persevere we shall prove—to use the words of the Apostle—that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
Happy is the man or woman who is quietly and constantly training himself or herself in the habit of doing without the things which have only a transitory worth, and out of all proportion to their cost. A famous New York minister used to say that his favourite occupation was to gaze in shop windows, and thank God for the things he could do without. Would God we might learn the lesson. How much we could do without that we buy at the cost of health, strength, and true happiness—that we obtain by the sacrifice of something me might have had or done that is really worthwhile. The old prophet in the Book of Isaiah had this in mind when he wrote, "Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfleth not?"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.