him, a glimmering hope somehow stirred in his heart by the patient sufferer at his side. The third, condemned for "Love to the loveless shown," bearing the burdens of the whole world, feeling the shame of the whole world, suffering for the sins of the whole world, wounded more by the hate of the malignant priests than by the nails driven through his hands and feet.

There are to-day in Europe three crosses, and three groups of sufferers. There is the brigand -brigand on the land and pirate on the seas unrepentant, self-satisfied, selfwilled, with all the bitterness of a defeated will and a fiery wrath burning within him. He has broken alike the laws of God and man. "Thou shalt not steal." He has robbed and plundered nations of their coal and iron, banks of their money, houses of their pictures and statues, and what he could not carry off he has in mere wantonness destroyed. "Thou shalt not kill." He has murdered innocent women and children by the score. The score? by the thousand. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." He has sanctioned, if he did not direct, rape on a magnitude never before known in the history of the civilized world.

There is another cross, the cross of those who have sinned and have abandoned their

sins. For the Germans were not the only people who have exploited the poor for their own benefit. Warren Hastings and Lord Clive wrote on the pages of India more than a hundred years ago a history which England would gladly tear out from her records if she could. The late king of Belgium is crowned with dishonor by the crimes committed in the Congo which his noble nephew has done so much to efface since by his self-sacrifice. Nor can we claim in America to be wholly innocent. It is true we have seized no man's territory. We won Cuba from Spain and gave it back to the Cubans; we won Porto Rico from Spain and gave it back to the Porto Ricans, making them our fellow-citizens and returning to them what we received from them in taxes; we won the Philippines from Spain, paying Spain for all her own property in the island, providing the money necessary to recompense the friars for their lands, and now we are giving the island back to the Filipinos as fast as we can. But we are not wholly innocent. The auction block has gone from the South and no man wishes to bring it back. The schoolhouse is gradually replacing the wigwam, though far too slowly. But the slums still remain in our great cities, though, thank God, there are political reformers and social settlement workers and devoted Christians who are doing what they

can, despite obstacles and opposition, to banish those crimes against humanity from our civilization.

There is a third cross.

There are no sin

less ones, but there are thousands, yes! hundreds of thousands of men and women who are laying down their lives for crimes in which they had no share and which never had their approval, who have never exploited the poor or been deaf to the cry of the needy, who have found in this war simply a new opportunity for the unselfish service of their fellow-men, who looking back on their past life might say with Job:

I delivered the poor that cried,

The fatherless also, that had none to help him.

The blessing of him that was ready to perish came

upon me;

And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind,

And feet was I to the lame.

I was a father to the needy:

And the cause of him that I knew not I searched out.

They are working in the hospitals at the peril of their lives. They are sailing the sea and defying the torpedo boats. They are serving in the trenches. They are flying in the airplanes. They are laying down their lives for their fellow-men.

These are the three crosses: the cross of the unrepentant, bitter, wrathful brigand; the cross of the repentant sinner; the cross of the men and women who are suffering for sins they never committed for sins for which they have no responsibility.

Why? Why do innocent men suffer for the crimes of the guilty?

Because it is eternally true, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins; because we live in a world which is a battlefield, in which righteousness and wickedness, truth and error, liberty and despotism, justice and injustice are in perpetual battle one against the other. And there is no way in which the falsehood, the despotism, the injustice, can be overthrown, unless there are men and women willing to suffer for the sins they have never committed; to make sacrifices that by their sacrifice they may give the life which others are destroying.

In paganism the gods are feared. In paganism sacrifices are offered to the gods to win from them a reluctant forgiveness, to appease their wrath, or to satisfy their law. Jesus Christ teaches that man is not to offer a sacrifice to God. God offers sacrifice to man. The New Testament is radiant with that message: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He is the author of the sacrifice. "Herein is love,

not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He is the sacrifice. He laid down

his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." His sacrifice inspires us to a like sacrifice.

Jesus portrays God as a good shepherd. He listens to the crying of the lambs and goes out into the wilderness that he may bring the wanderers back again and when he sees the wolf coming imperils his life, fighting the wolf that he may save the sheep. Jesus portrays God as a father, bearing in his soul the sin and shame of the wicked son, going forth to greet him and bring him back to the home again when the son's face is turned in penitence toward him. God offers himself a sacrifice to man.

And what the Bible teaches, life teaches. The repentant thief did not suffer sacrifice that he might win forgiveness from the Savior. Jesus, by self-sacrifice inspired repentance and the hope of a better life in the brigand at his side. The child does not win a reluctant forgiveness from the mother. The tears, the prayers, the heart-breakings of the mother win the child back from his evil doings to his home once more. A pagan community does not, by its sacrifice, win the missionary. The missionary sacrifices wealth and comfort and home that he may win the