vii.] LAW OF SELF-SACRIFICE. 177 



the selfishness and barbarism of man. But be that as 

 it may, in man the law of self-sacrifice whether un- 

 conscious or not in the animals rises into consciousness 

 just as far as he is a man ; and the crowning lesson of 

 bio-geology may be, when we have worked it out after 

 all, the lesson of Christmas-tide of the infinite self- 

 sacrifice of God for man; and Nature as well as religion 

 may say to us : 



Ah, could you crush that ever craving lust 



For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose your life, 



Your barren unit life, to find again 



A thousand times in those for whom you die 



So were you men and women, and should hold 



Your rightful rank in God's great universe, 



Wherein, in heaven or earth, by will or nature, 



Naught lives for self. All, all, from crown to base 



The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain 



The angels, ministers to God's elect 



The sun, who only shines to light the worlds 



The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers 



The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves 



Flee the decay of stagnant self -content 



The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe 



The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower 



The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms 



Born only to be prey to every bird 



All spend themselves on others : and shall man, 



Whose twofold being is the mystic knot 



Which couples earth with heaven, doubly bound, 



As being both worm and angel, to that service 



By which both worms and angels hold their life, 



Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, 



Refuse, forsooth, to be what God has made him ? 



No ; let him show himself the creatures' Lord 



By free-will gift of that self-sacrifice 



Which they, perforce, by Nature's laws endure. 



