单项选择题

TEXT D
The sense of honor appears to be dying.
In World War II men died more or less willingly for the nation and the nation’s honor, and they were honored for it in return. Now we have become cynical about such things, the nation lies, fights unjustifiable wars; the nation suffer a breach in the honor code.
At my college the students used to agree to inform on their friends rather than suffer a breach in the honor code.A sense of honor is a sense that there ’me standards of behavior one must live up to, even at the cost of one’s per send happiness, even at the Cost of one’s life. Without such a sense one has to make up one’s rights and wrongs as one goes along——usually, as it happens, to one’s own advantage. Morality thereby becomes a matter of expediency: nothing seems worth dying for, and life loses its beauty and some of its value.
Our recent history has deprived us of models. I cherish the story of John Stubbs, a Puritan divine of Queen Elizabeth’s time who strongly opposed her projected marriage to the Duke of Alencon. Stubbs knew the penalty for doing so, which was the loss of a hand; nevertheless, he published, and led out for public execution of the sentence. Stubbs laid his right hand on the block, the ax fell, and he rose to his feet, lifted the bloody stump high in the air, and cried out to the crowd, "Long live the Queen!"
In spite of the blood and the horror, it is the beauty of such an act that stands out. A man lives UP to his beliefs; he acts with courage and great style and literally gives of himself in the service of something he feels is greater than himself. We cannot help but honor him, whether we agree with his beliefs or not.
The story of John Stubbs is told to convey the idea that ______.