not wholly lived in vain. He learned to love the angel Truth so well that she came to his side each day, and gave him sweet counsel and many lessons for mankind.

But he had purchased the light at a cost which few can afford to give.

XXII.

THE SACRIFICE.

A large party of travelers on their way to a distant country were obliged to pass through a dense forest to reach it. Their leader went forward, and, seeing the darkness of the dense woods, was convinced of the impossibility of his people going through it, without the aid of a light to guide them. He sat beside the mossy stones at the entrance, trying to devise some means by which to light up the darkness. There seemed but one way, and that almost hopeless, as it involved a sacrifice of life, and he knew too well the nature of the trees to expect any of them to give themselves up for his travelers. How could he ask it, as he stepped into the deep wood, and looked on their grand proportions and rich foliage? His was no enviable position to entreat them to give up the existence which must be dear to themselves,—to pass from the known to the unknown life.

Vainly he tried to think of another way to accomplish his purpose. None presented itself; so with glowing words he appealed to their nobler selves, telling them all the great need of the travelers who were obliged to pass that way. First he appealed to a fine birch which bordered the forest.

"Not I, indeed!" answered the tree. "Do you think I would give my life to light a few people through this woodland? I prefer to live a few years longer."

He next addressed a walnut. She shook a few leaves from her branches, and made a similar reply, preferring to live in her own form, and amid her sister trees, to going she knew not whither.

"Are there none here," he continued, "who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the needs of others?"

He looked around the forest in vain: all were silent, and he was about to return to the people, when a large and stately oak spoke in clear and ringing tones, saying, "I will give my body that the travelers may have light."

"What! that grand old body of yours, that has been so many years growing and maturing to its present stately and fair proportions!" exclaimed several of the trees.

"You are not only rash, but foolish," remarked a small fir 

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