LIEUTENANT SMITH, V.0.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TRH "SPROTATOI.n
SER,—To do is easier than to suffer. The blood-boiling enthusiasm of the charge in attack must be less strain than the protracted patient watching of the defence, and this human characteristic' makes the heroic self-sacrifiee of Lieutenant Smith, V.C.—for he still lives and will live with us—all the greater. Ho died in defending his comrades from the fallen bomb ; how much easier to have given his life in the heat of throwing it in the cheering charge. This is indeed the glorious and transcendent point of the incident —the self-sacrifice which achieves and redeems. I wonder in how many of our pulpits this glorious illustration of unselfishness has been made the foundation of a sermon. Never, probably, has a more striking illustration been presented for use. Disguise it as we may, selfishness, and that still greater evil, self-centredness, of which selfishness is but a part, is the great curse of the world to-day. How many people are miserable because they are so anxious to be happy—nay, even so ill, as they believe, because they are so anxious to be well, when in truth their aims would be achieved in ceasing to struggle and in contented resignation of their sell-seeking? "Re that would save his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My [for another's] sake, shall find it." I was ono of a largo congregation on Sunday morning, and I could not help regretting that the highly gifted young clergyman had not given us a lesson from a glorious contemporary exam pie of unselfishness, an example which, in truth, not only raises man above the brutes which perish, but even establishes his likeness and image of the good which is etemal.—I am, Sir, &c.,
E. J. W.
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