"It is not but the tempest that doth show
The seaman's cunning; but the field that tries
The captain's courage; and we come to know
Best what men are, in their worst jeopardies."--DANIEL.
"If thou canst plan a noble deed,
And never flag till it succeed,
Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
Whatever obstacles control,
Thine hour will come--go on, true soul!
Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal."--C. MACKAY.
"The heroic example of other days is in great part the
source of the courage of each generation; and men walk up
composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned
onwards by the shades of the brave that were."--HELPS.
"That which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."--TENNYSON.
THE world owes much to its men and women of courage. We do not mean
physical courage, in which man is at least equalled by the bulldog; nor
is the bulldog considered the wisest of his species.
The courage that displays itself in silent effort and endeavour--that
dares to endure all and suffer all for truth and duty--is more truly
heroic than the achievements of physical valour, which are rewarded by
honours and titles, or by laurels sometimes steeped in blood.
It is moral courage that characterises the highest order of manhood and
womanhood--the courage to seek and to speak the truth; the courage to
be just; the courage to be honest; the courage to resist temptation; the
courage to do one's duty. If men and women do not possess this virtue,
they have no security whatever for the preservation of any other.
Every step of progress in the history of our race has been made in the
face of opposition and difficulty, and been achieved and secured by men
of intrepidity and valour--by leaders in the van of thought--by great
discoverers, great patriots, and great workers in all walks of life.
There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight its
way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and
persecution. "Everywhere," says Heine, "that a great soul gives
utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha."
"Many loved Truth and lavished life's best oil,
Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,
With the cast mantle she had left behind her.
Many in sad faith sought for her,
Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her,
Tasting the raptured fleetness
Of her divine completeness." [141]
Socrates was condemned to drink the hemlock at Athens in his
seventy-second year, because his lofty teaching ran counter to the
prejudices and party-spirit of his age. He was charged by his accusers
with corrupting the youth of Athens by inciting them to despise the
tutelary deities of the state. He had the moral courage to brave not
only the tyranny of the judges who condemned him, but of the mob who
could not understand him. He died discoursing of the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul; his last words to his judges being, "It is now
time that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better
destiny is unknown to all, except to the God."
How many great men and thinkers have been persecuted in the name of
religion! Bruno was burnt alive at Rome, because of his exposure of the
fashionable but false philosophy of his time. When the judges of the
Inquisition condemned him, to die, Bruno said proudly: "You are more
afraid to pronounce my sentence than I am to receive it."
To him succeeded Galileo, whose character as a man of science is almost
eclipsed by that of the martyr. Denounced by the priests from the
pulpit, because of the views he taught as to the motion of the earth,
he was summoned to Rome, in his seventieth year, to answer for his
heterodoxy. And he was imprisoned in the Inquisition, if he was not
actually put to the torture there. He was pursued by persecution even
when dead, the Pope refusing a tomb for his body.
Roger Bacon, the Franciscan monk, was persecuted on account of his
studies in natural philosophy, and he was charged with, dealing in
magic, because of his investigations in chemistry. His writings were
condemned, and he was thrown into prison, where he lay for ten years,
during the lives of four successive Popes. It is even averred that he
died in prison.
Ockham, the early English speculative philosopher, was excommunicated
by the Pope, and died in exile at Munich, where he was protected by the
friendship of the then Emperor of Germany.
The Inquisition branded Vesalius as a heretic for revealing man to man,
as it had before branded Bruno and Galileo for revealing the heavens to
man. Vesalius had the boldness to study the structure of the human body
by actual dissection, a practice until then almost entirely forbidden.
He laid the foundations of a science, but he paid for it with his
life. Condemned by the Inquisition, his penalty was commuted, by the
intercession of the Spanish king, into a pilgrimage to the Holy Land;
and when on his way back, while still in the prime of life, he died
miserably at Zante, of fever and want--a martyr to his love of science.
When the 'Novum Organon' appeared, a hue-and-cry was raised against it,
because of its alleged tendency to produce "dangerous revolutions," to
"subvert governments," and to "overturn the authority of religion;"
[142] and one Dr. Henry Stubbe [14whose name would otherwise have been
forgotten] wrote a book against the new philosophy, denouncing the
whole tribe of experimentalists as "a Bacon-faced generation." Even
the establishment of the Royal Society was opposed, on the ground that
"experimental philosophy is subversive of the Christian faith."
While the followers of Copernicus were persecuted as infidels, Kepler
was branded with the stigma of heresy, "because," said he, "I take that
side which seems to me to be consonant with the Word of God." Even the
pure and simpleminded Newton, of whom Bishop Burnet said that he had the
WHITEST SOUL he ever knew--who was a very infant in the purity of his
mind--even Newton was accused of "dethroning the Deity" by his sublime
discovery of the law of gravitation; and a similar charge was made
against Franklin for explaining the nature of the thunderbolt.
Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, because of
his views of philosophy, which were supposed to be adverse to religion;
and his life was afterwards attempted by an assassin for the same
reason. Spinoza remained courageous and self-reliant to the last, dying
in obscurity and poverty.
The philosophy of Descartes was denounced as leading to irreligion; the
doctrines of Locke were said to produce materialism; and in our own
day, Dr. Buckland, Mr. Sedgwick, and other leading geologists, have been
accused of overturning revelation with regard to the constitution and
history of the earth. Indeed, there has scarcely been a discovery in
astronomy, in natural history, or in physical science, that has not been
attacked by the bigoted and narrow-minded as leading to infidelity.
Other great discoverers, though they may not have been charged with
irreligion, have had not less obloquy of a professional and public
nature to encounter. When Dr. Harvey published his theory of the
circulation of the blood, his practice fell off, [143] and the medical
profession stigmatised him as a fool. "The few good things I have been
able to do," said John Hunter, "have been accomplished with the greatest
difficulty, and encountered the greatest opposition." Sir Charles Bell,
while employed in his important investigations as to the nervous system,
which issued in one of the greatest of physiological discoveries, wrote
to a friend: "If I were not so poor, and had not so many vexations
to encounter, how happy would I be!" But he himself observed that his
practice sensibly fell off after the publication of each successive
stage of his discovery.
Thus, nearly every enlargement of the domain of knowledge, which has
made us better acquainted with the heavens, with the earth, and with
ourselves, has been established by the energy, the devotion, the
self-sacrifice, and the courage of the great spirits of past times, who,
however much they have been opposed or reviled by their contemporaries,
now rank amongst those whom the enlightened of the human race most
delight to honour.
Nor is the unjust intolerance displayed towards men of science in the
past, without its lesson for the present. It teaches us to be forbearant
towards those who differ from us, provided they observe patiently, think
honestly, and utter their convictions freely and truthfully. It was a
remark of Plato, that "the world is God's epistle to mankind;" and to
read and study that epistle, so as to elicit its true meaning, can
have no other effect on a well-ordered mind than to lead to a deeper
impression of His power, a clearer perception of His wisdom, and a more
grateful sense of His goodness.
While such has been the courage of the martyrs of science, not less
glorious has been the courage of the martyrs of faith. The passive
endurance of the man or woman who, for conscience sake, is found
ready to suffer and to endure in solitude, without so much as the
encouragement of even a single sympathising voice, is an exhibition of
courage of a far higher kind than that displayed in the roar of battle,
where even the weakest feels encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm
of sympathy and the power of numbers. Time would fail to tell of the
deathless names of those who through faith in principles, and in the
face of difficulty, danger, and suffering, "have wrought righteousness
and waxed valiant" in the moral warfare of the world, and been content
to lay down their lives rather than prove false to their conscientious
convictions of the truth.
Men of this stamp, inspired by a high sense of duty, have in past times
exhibited character in its most heroic aspects, and continue to present
to us some of the noblest spectacles to be seen in history. Even women,
full of tenderness and gentleness, not less than men, have in this cause
been found capable of exhibiting the most unflinching courage. Such, for
instance, as that of Anne Askew, who, when racked until her bones were
dislocated, uttered no cry, moved no muscle, but looked her tormentors
calmly in the face, and refused either to confess or to recant; or such
as that of Latimer and Ridley, who, instead of bewailing their hard
fate and beating their breasts, went as cheerfully to their death as
a bridegroom to the altar--the one bidding the other to "be of good
comfort," for that "we shall this day light such a candle in England, by
God's grace, as shall never be put out;" or such, again, as that of Mary
Dyer, the Quakeress, hanged by the Puritans of New England for preaching
to the people, who ascended the scaffold with a willing step, and, after
calmly addressing those who stood about, resigned herself into the hands
of her persecutors, and died in peace and joy.
Not less courageous was the behaviour of the good Sir Thomas More, who
marched willingly to the scaffold, and died cheerfully there, rather
than prove false to his conscience. When More had made his final
decision to stand upon his principles, he felt as if he had won a
victory, and said to his son-in-law Roper: "Son Roper, I thank Our Lord,
the field is won!" The Duke of Norfolk told him of his danger, saying:
"By the mass, Master More, it is perilous striving with princes; the
anger of a prince brings death!". "Is that all, my lord?" said More;
"then the difference between you and me is this--that I shall die
to-day, and you to-morrow."
While it has been the lot of many great men, in times of difficulty and
danger, to be cheered and supported by their wives, More had no such
consolation. His helpmate did anything but console him during his
imprisonment in the Tower. [144] She could not conceive that there was any
sufficient reason for his continuing to lie there, when by merely doing
what the King required of him, he might at once enjoy his liberty,
together with his fine house at Chelsea, his library, his orchard, his
gallery, and the society of his wife and children. "I marvel," said she
to him one day, "that you, who have been alway hitherto taken for wise,
should now so play the fool as to lie here in this close filthy prison,
and be content to be shut up amongst mice and rats, when you might be
abroad at your liberty, if you would but do as the bishops have done?"
But More saw his duty from a different point of view: it was not a mere
matter of personal comfort with him; and the expostulations of his wife
were of no avail. He gently put her aside, saying cheerfully, "Is not
this house as nigh heaven as my own?"--to which she contemptuously
rejoined: "Tilly vally--tilly vally!"
More's daughter, Margaret Roper, on the contrary, encouraged her father
to stand firm in his principles, and dutifully consoled and cheered
him during his long confinement. Deprived of pen-and-ink, he wrote his
letters to her with a piece of coal, saying in one of them: "If I were
to declare in writing how much pleasure your daughterly loving letters
gave me, a PECK OF COALS would not suffice to make the pens." More was
a martyr to veracity: he would not swear a false oath; and he perished
because he was sincere. When his head had been struck off, it was placed
on London Bridge, in accordance with the barbarous practice of the
times. Margaret Roper had the courage to ask for the head to be taken
down and given to her, and, carrying her affection for her father beyond
the grave, she desired that it might be buried with her when she died;
and long after, when Margaret Roper's tomb was opened, the precious
relic was observed lying on the dust of what had been her bosom.
Martin Luther was not called upon to lay down his life for his faith;
but, from the day that he declared himself against the Pope, he daily
ran the risk of losing it. At the beginning of his great struggle, he
stood almost entirely alone. The odds against him were tremendous. "On
one side," said he himself, "are learning, genius, numbers, grandeur,
rank, power, sanctity, miracles; on the other Wycliffe, Lorenzo Valla,
Augustine, and Luther--a poor creature, a man of yesterday, standing
wellnigh alone with a few friends." Summoned by the Emperor to appear at
Worms; to answer the charge made against him of heresy, he determined to
answer in person. Those about him told him that he would lose his life
if he went, and they urged him to fly. "No," said he, "I will repair
thither, though I should find there thrice as many devils as there are
tiles upon the housetops!" Warned against the bitter enmity of a certain
Duke George, he said--"I will go there, though for nine whole days
running it rained Duke Georges."
Luther was as good as his word; and he set forth upon his perilous
journey. When he came in sight of the old bell-towers of Worms, he
stood up in his chariot and sang, "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."--the
'Marseillaise' of the Reformation--the words and music of which he is
said to have improvised only two days before. Shortly before the meeting
of the Diet, an old soldier, George Freundesberg, put his hand upon
Luther's shoulder, and said to him: "Good monk, good monk, take heed
what thou doest; thou art going into a harder fight than any of us have
ever yet been in." But Luther's only answer to the veteran was, that he
had "determined to stand upon the Bible and his conscience."
Luther's courageous defence before the Diet is on record, and forms one
of the most glorious pages in history. When finally urged by the Emperor
to retract, he said firmly: "Sire, unless I am convinced of my error by
the testimony of Scripture, or by manifest evidence, I cannot and will
not retract, for we must never act contrary to our conscience. Such is
my profession of faith, and you must expect none other from me. HIER
STEHE ICH: ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS: GOTT HELFE MIR!" [14Here stand I: I
cannot do otherwise: God help me!]. He had to do his duty--to obey
the orders of a Power higher than that of kings; and he did it at all
hazards.
Afterwards, when hard pressed by his enemies at Augsburg, Luther said
that "if he had five hundred heads, he would lose them all rather than
recant his article concerning faith." Like all courageous men, his
strength only seemed to grow in proportion to the difficulties he had to
encounter and overcome. "There is no man in Germany," said Hutten, "who
more utterly despises death than does Luther." And to his moral courage,
perhaps more than to that of any other single man, do we owe the
liberation of modern thought, and the vindication of the great rights of
the human understanding.
The honourable and brave man does not fear death compared with ignominy.
It is said of the Royalist Earl of Strafford that, as he walked to the
scaffold on Tower Hill, his step and manner were those of a general
marching at the head of an army to secure victory, rather than of a
condemned man to undergo sentence of death. So the Commonwealth's
man, Sir John Eliot, went alike bravely to his death on the same spot,
saying: "Ten thousand deaths rather than defile my conscience, the
chastity and purity of which I value beyond all this world." Eliot's
greatest tribulation was on account of his wife, whom he had to leave
behind. When he saw her looking down upon him from the Tower window, he
stood up in the cart, waved his hat, and cried: "To heaven, my love!--to
heaven!--and leave you in the storm!" As he went on his way, one in the
crowd called out, "That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on;" to
which he replied: "It is so, indeed!" and rejoiced exceedingly. [145]
Although success is the guerdon for which all men toil, they have
nevertheless often to labour on perseveringly, without any glimmer
of success in sight. They have to live, meanwhile, upon their
courage--sowing their seed, it may be, in the dark, in the hope that it
will yet take root and spring up in achieved result. The best of causes
have had to fight their way to triumph through a long succession of
failures, and many of the assailants have died in the breach before
the fortress has been won. The heroism they have displayed is to be
measured, not so much by their immediate success, as by the opposition
they have encountered, and the courage with which they have maintained
the struggle.
The patriot who fights an always-losing battle--the martyr who goes to
death amidst the triumphant shouts of his enemies--the discoverer, like
Columbus, whose heart remains undaunted through the bitter years of his
"long wandering woe"--are examples of the moral sublime which excite a
profounder interest in the hearts of men than even the most complete and
conspicuous success. By the side of such instances as these, how small
by comparison seem the greatest deeds of valour, inciting men to rush
upon death and die amidst the frenzied excitement of physical warfare!
But the greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not
of a heroic kind. Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well
as in historic fields of action. There needs, for example, the common
courage to be honest--the courage to resist temptation--the courage
to speak the truth--the courage to be what we really are, and not to
pretend to be what we are not--the courage to live honestly within our
own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others.
A great deal of the unhappiness, and much of the vice, of the world is
owing to weakness and indecision of purpose--in other words, to lack
of courage. Men may know what is right, and yet fail to exercise the
courage to do it; they may understand the duty they have to do, but
will not summon up the requisite resolution to perform it. The weak and
undisciplined man is at the mercy of every temptation; he cannot say
"No," but falls before it. And if his companionship be bad, he will be
all the easier led away by bad example into wrongdoing.
Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be
sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action. The will,
which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of
decision--otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to
follow good. Decision gives the power of standing firmly, when to yield,
however slightly, might be only the first step in a downhill course to
ruin.
Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than
useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers
and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency. Plutarch tells
of a King of Macedon who, in the midst of an action, withdrew into the
adjoining town under pretence of sacrificing to Hercules; whilst his
opponent Emilius, at the same time that he implored the Divine aid,
sought for victory sword in hand, and won the battle. And so it ever is
in the actions of daily life.
Many are the valiant purposes formed, that end merely in words; deeds
intended, that are never done; designs projected, that are never begun;
and all for want of a little courageous decision. Better far the silent
tongue but the eloquent deed. For in life and in business, despatch is
better than discourse; and the shortest answer of all is, DOING. "In
matters of great concern, and which must be done," says Tillotson,
"there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution--to be
undetermined when the case is so plain and the necessity so urgent. To
be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set
about it,--this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and
sleeping from one day to another, until he is starved and destroyed."
There needs also the exercise of no small degree of moral courage to
resist the corrupting influences of what is called "Society." Although
"Mrs. Grundy" may be a very vulgar and commonplace personage, her
influence is nevertheless prodigious. Most men, but especially women,
are the moral slaves of the class or caste to which they belong. There
is a sort of unconscious conspiracy existing amongst them against each
other's individuality. Each circle and section, each rank and class, has
its respective customs and observances, to which conformity is required
at the risk of being tabooed. Some are immured within a bastile of
fashion, others of custom, others of opinion; and few there are who have
the courage to think outside their sect, to act outside their party,
and to step out into the free air of individual thought and action.
We dress, and eat, and follow fashion, though it may be at the risk of
debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as
according to the superstitious observances of our class. Though we may
speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the
Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities
of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of "Mrs. Grundy" is
universal.
But moral cowardice is exhibited quite as much in public as in private
life. Snobbism is not confined to the toadying of the rich, but is quite
as often displayed in the toadying of the poor. Formerly, sycophancy
showed itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in high places;
but in these days it rather shows itself in not daring to speak the
truth to those in low places. Now that "the masses" [146] exercise
political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, to
flatter them, and to speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are
credited with virtues which they themselves know they do not possess.
The public enunciation of wholesome because disagreeable truths is
avoided; and, to win their favour, sympathy is often pretended for
views, the carrying out of which in practice is known to be hopeless.
It is not the man of the noblest character--the highest-cultured and
best-conditioned man--whose favour is now sought, so much as that of the
lowest man, the least-cultured and worst-conditioned man, because his
vote is usually that of the majority. Even men of rank, wealth, and
education, are seen prostrating themselves before the ignorant, whose
votes are thus to be got. They are ready to be unprincipled and unjust
rather than unpopular. It is so much easier for some men to stoop, to
bow, and to flatter, than to be manly, resolute, and magnanimous; and to
yield to prejudices than run counter to them. It requires strength and
courage to swim against the stream, while any dead fish can float with
it.
This servile pandering to popularity has been rapidly on the increase of
late years, and its tendency has been to lower and degrade the character
of public men. Consciences have become more elastic. There is now one
opinion for the chamber, and another for the platform. Prejudices
are pandered to in public, which in private are despised. Pretended
conversions--which invariably jump with party interests are more sudden;
and even hypocrisy now appears to be scarcely thought discreditable.
The same moral cowardice extends downwards as well as upwards. The
action and reaction are equal. Hypocrisy and timeserving above are
accompanied by hypocrisy and timeserving below. Where men of high
standing have not the courage of their opinions, what is to be expected
from men of low standing? They will only follow such examples as are set
before them. They too will skulk, and dodge, and prevaricate--be ready
to speak one way and act another--just like their betters. Give them
but a sealed box, or some hole-and-corner to hide their act in, and they
will then enjoy their "liberty!"
Popularity, as won in these days, is by no means a presumption in a
man's favour, but is quite as often a presumption against him. "No man,"
says the Russian proverb, "can rise to honour who is cursed with a stiff
backbone." But the backbone of the popularity-hunter is of gristle; and
he has no difficulty in stooping and bending himself in any direction to
catch the breath of popular applause.
Where popularity is won by fawning upon the people, by withholding the
truth from them, by writing and speaking down to the lowest tastes, and
still worse by appeals to class-hatred, [147] such a popularity must be
simply contemptible in the sight of all honest men. Jeremy Bentham,
speaking of a well-known public character, said: "His creed of politics
results less from love of the many than from hatred of the few; it is
too much under the influence of selfish and dissocial affection." To how
many men in our own day might not the same description apply?
Men of sterling character have the courage to speak the truth, even when
it is unpopular. It was said of Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, that he
never sought after popular applause, or prided himself on it: "He
more delighted to do well than to be praised, and never set vulgar
commendations at such a rate as to act contrary to his own conscience or
reason for the obtaining them; nor would he forbear a good action which
he was bound to, though all the world disliked it; for he ever looked
on things as they were in themselves, not through the dim spectacles of
vulgar estimation." [148]
"Popularity, in the lowest and most common sense," said Sir John
Pakington, on a recent occasion, [149] "is not worth the having. Do
your duty to the best of your power, win the approbation of your own
conscience, and popularity, in its best and highest sense, is sure to
follow."
When Richard Lovell Edgeworth, towards the close of his life, became
very popular in his neighbourhood, he said one day to his daughter:
"Maria, I am growing dreadfully popular; I shall be good for nothing
soon; a man cannot be good for anything who is very popular." Probably
he had in his mind at the time the Gospel curse of the popular man, "Woe
unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers
to the false prophets."
Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence
and self-reliance of character. A man must have the courage to be
himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another. He must exercise
his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments.
He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions. It has
been said that he who dare not form an opinion, must be a coward; he who
will not, must be an idler; he who cannot, must be a fool.
But it is precisely in this element of intrepidity that so many persons
of promise fall short, and disappoint the expectations of their friends.
They march up to the scene of action, but at every step their courage
oozes out. They want the requisite decision, courage, and perseverance.
They calculate the risks, and weigh the chances, until the opportunity
for effective effort has passed, it may be never to return.
Men are bound to speak the truth in the love of it. "I had rather
suffer," said John Pym, the Commonwealth man, "for speaking the truth,
than that the truth should suffer for want of my speaking." When a man's
convictions are honestly formed, after fair and full consideration, he
is justified in striving by all fair means to bring them into action.
There are certain states of society and conditions of affairs in which
a man is bound to speak out, and be antagonistic--when conformity is not
only a weakness, but a sin. Great evils are in some cases only to be met
by resistance; they cannot be wept down, but must be battled down.
The honest man is naturally antagonistic to fraud, the truthful man to
lying, the justice-loving man to oppression, the pureminded man to
vice and iniquity. They have to do battle with these conditions, and if
possible overcome them. Such men have in all ages represented the moral
force of the world. Inspired by benevolence and sustained by courage,
they have been the mainstays of all social renovation and progress. But
for their continuous antagonism to evil conditions, the world were for
the most part given over to the dominion of selfishness and vice.
All the great reformers and martyrs were antagonistic men--enemies to
falsehood and evildoing. The Apostles themselves were an organised
band of social antagonists, who contended with pride, selfishness,
superstition, and irreligion. And in our own time the lives of such
men as Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Father Mathew and Richard Cobden,
inspired by singleness of purpose, have shown what highminded social
antagonism can effect.
It is the strong and courageous men who lead and guide and rule the
world. The weak and timid leave no trace behind them; whilst the life of
a single upright and energetic man is like a track of light. His example
is remembered and appealed to; and his thoughts, his spirit, and his
courage continue to be the inspiration of succeeding generations.
It is energy--the central element of which is will--that produces the
miracles of enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is the mainspring of
what is called force of character, and the sustaining power of all great
action. In a righteous cause the determined man stands upon his courage
as upon a granite block; and, like David, he will go forth to meet
Goliath, strong in heart though an host be encamped against him.
Men often conquer difficulties because they feel they can. Their
confidence in themselves inspires the confidence of others. When Caesar
was at sea, and a storm began to rage, the captain of the ship which
carried him became unmanned by fear. "What art thou afraid of?" cried
the great captain; "thy vessel carries Caesar!" The courage of the brave
man is contagious, and carries others along with it. His stronger nature
awes weaker natures into silence, or inspires them with his own will and
purpose.
The persistent man will not be baffled or repulsed by opposition.
Diogenes, desirous of becoming the disciple of Antisthenes, went and
offered himself to the cynic. He was refused. Diogenes still persisting,
the cynic raised his knotty staff, and threatened to strike him if he
did not depart. "Strike!" said Diogenes; "you will not find a stick
hard enough to conquer my perseverance." Antisthenes, overcome, had not
another word to say, but forthwith accepted him as his pupil.
Energy of temperament, with a moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a
man further than any amount of intellect without it. Energy makes the
man of practical ability. It gives him VIS, force, MOMENTUM. It is the
active motive power of character; and if combined with sagacity and
self-possession, will enable a man to employ his powers to the best
advantage in all the affairs of life.
Hence it is that, inspired by energy of purpose, men of comparatively
mediocre powers have often been enabled to accomplish such extraordinary
results. For the men who have most powerfully influenced the world have
not been so much men of genius as men of strong convictions and enduring
capacity for work, impelled by irresistible energy and invincible
determination: such men, for example, as were Mahomet, Luther, Knox,
Calvin, Loyola, and Wesley.
Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome
difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse to
effort, and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of Faraday, that
"in his warm moments he formed a resolution, and in his cool ones
he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in the right
direction, grows with time, and when steadily practised, even by the
most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in the help of
others is of comparatively little use. When one of Michael Angelo's
principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to understand that the
promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to
confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value, is the
best and safest course."
Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary,
gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterise the men,
not less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds. Sir
Charles Napier gave up sporting, because he could not bear to hurt dumb
creatures. The same gentleness and tenderness characterised his brother,
Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War. [1410] Such also was the
character of Sir James Outram, pronounced by Sir Charles Napier to be
"the Bayard of India, SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE"--one of the bravest
and yet gentlest of men; respectful and reverent to women, tender to
children, helpful of the weak, stern to the corrupt, but kindly as
summer to the honest and deserving. Moreover, he was himself as honest
as day, and as pure as virtue. Of him it might be said with truth, what
Fulke Greville said of Sidney: "He was a true model of worth--a man
fit for conquest, reformation, plantation, or what action soever is the
greatest and hardest among men; his chief ends withal being above all
things the good of his fellows, and the service of his sovereign and
country."
When Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Poictiers, in which he
took prisoner the French king and his son, he entertained them in the
evening at a banquet, when he insisted on waiting upon and serving them
at table. The gallant prince's knightly courtesy and demeanour won
the hearts of his captives as completely as his valour had won their
persons; for, notwithstanding his youth, Edward was a true knight, the
first and bravest of his time--a noble pattern and example of chivalry;
his two mottoes, 'Hochmuth' and 'Ich dien' [14high spirit and reverent
service] not inaptly expressing his prominent and pervading qualities.
It is the courageous man who can best afford to be generous; or rather,
it is his nature to be so. When Fairfax, at the Battle of Naseby, seized
the colours from an ensign whom he had struck down in the fight, he
handed them to a common soldier to take care of. The soldier, unable
to resist the temptation, boasted to his comrades that he had himself
seized the colours, and the boast was repeated to Fairfax. "Let him
retain the honour," said the commander; "I have enough beside."
So when Douglas, at the Battle of Bannockburn, saw Randolph, his rival,
outnumbered and apparently overpowered by the enemy, he prepared to
hasten to his assistance; but, seeing that Randolph was already driving
them back, he cried out, "Hold and halt! We are come too late to aid
them; let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim
a share in it."
Quite as chivalrous, though in a very different field of action, was the
conduct of Laplace to the young philosopher Biot, when the latter had
read to the French Academy his paper, "SUR LES EQUATIONS AUX DIFFERENCE
MELEES." The assembled SAVANS, at its close, felicitated the reader
of the paper on his originality. Monge was delighted at his success.
Laplace also praised him for the clearness of his demonstrations, and
invited Biot to accompany him home. Arrived there, Laplace took from a
closet in his study a paper, yellow with age, and handed it to the
young philosopher. To Biot's surprise, he found that it contained
the solutions, all worked out, for which he had just gained so much
applause. With rare magnanimity, Laplace withheld all knowledge of the
circumstance from Biot until the latter had initiated his reputation
before the Academy; moreover, he enjoined him to silence; and the
incident would have remained a secret had not Biot himself published it,
some fifty years afterwards.
An incident is related of a French artisan, exhibiting the same
characteristic of self-sacrifice in another form. In front of a lofty
house in course of erection at Paris was the usual scaffold, loaded with
men and materials. The scaffold, being too weak, suddenly broke down,
and the men upon it were precipitated to the ground--all except two, a
young man and a middle-aged one, who hung on to a narrow ledge, which
trembled under their weight, and was evidently on the point of giving
way. "Pierre," cried the elder of the two, "let go; I am the father of a
family." "C'EST JUSTE!" said Pierre; and, instantly letting go his hold,
he fell and was killed on the spot. The father of the family was saved.
The brave man is magnanimous as well as gentle. He does not take even an
enemy at a disadvantage, nor strike a man when he is down and unable
to defend himself. Even in the midst of deadly strife such instances
of generosity have not been uncommon. Thus, at the Battle of Dettingen,
during the heat of the action, a squadron of French cavalry charged an
English regiment; but when the young French officer who led them, and
was about to attack the English leader, observed that he had only
one arm, with which he held his bridle, the Frenchman saluted him
courteously with his sword, and passed on. [1411]
It is related of Charles V., that after the siege and capture of
Wittenburg by the Imperialist army, the monarch went to see the tomb
of Luther. While reading the inscription on it, one of the servile
courtiers who accompanied him proposed to open the grave, and give the
ashes of the "heretic" to the winds. The monarch's cheek flushed with
honest indignation: "I war not with the dead," said he; "let this place
be respected."
The portrait which the great heathen, Aristotle, drew of the Magnanimous
Man, in other words the True Gentleman, more than two thousand years
ago, is as faithful now as it was then. "The magnanimous man," he said,
"will behave with moderation under both good fortune and bad. He
will know how to be exalted and how to be abased. He will neither be
delighted with success nor grieved by failure. He will neither shun
danger nor seek it, for there are few things which he cares for. He is
reticent, and somewhat slow of speech, but speaks his mind openly and
boldly when occasion calls for it. He is apt to admire, for nothing
is great to him. He overlooks injuries. He is not given to talk about
himself or about others; for he does not care that he himself should
be praised, or that other people should be blamed. He does not cry out
about trifles, and craves help from none."
On the other hand, mean men admire meanly. They have neither modesty,
generosity, nor magnanimity. They are ready to take advantage of the
weakness or defencelessness of others, especially where they have
themselves succeeded, by unscrupulous methods, in climbing to positions
of authority. Snobs in high places are always much less tolerable than
snobs of low degree, because they have more frequent opportunities of
making their want of manliness felt. They assume greater airs, and are
pretentious in all that they do; and the higher their elevation, the
more conspicuous is the incongruity of their position. "The higher the
monkey climbs," says the proverb, "the more he shows his tail."
Much depends on the way in which a thing is done. An act which might
be taken as a kindness if done in a generous spirit, when done in a
grudging spirit, may be felt as stingy, if not harsh and even cruel.
When Ben Jonson lay sick and in poverty, the king sent him a paltry
message, accompanied by a gratuity. The sturdy plainspoken poet's reply
was: "I suppose he sends me this because I live in an alley; tell him
his soul lives in an alley."
From what we have said, it will be obvious that to be of an enduring and
courageous spirit, is of great importance in the formation of character.
It is a source not only of usefulness in life, but of happiness. On the
other hand, to be of a timid and, still more, of a cowardly nature is
one of the greatest misfortunes. A. wise man was accustomed to say that
one of the principal objects he aimed at in the education of his sons
and daughters was to train them in the habit of fearing nothing so much
as fear. And the habit of avoiding fear is, doubtless, capable of
being trained like any other habit, such as the habit of attention, of
diligence, of study, or of cheerfulness.
Much of the fear that exists is the offspring of imagination, which
creates the images of evils which MAY happen, but perhaps rarely do;
and thus many persons who are capable of summoning up courage to
grapple with and overcome real dangers, are paralysed or thrown
into consternation by those which are imaginary. Hence, unless the
imagination be held under strict discipline, we are prone to meet evils
more than halfway--to suffer them by forestalment, and to assume the
burdens which we ourselves create.
Education in courage is not usually included amongst the branches of
female training, and yet it is really of greater importance than either
music, French, or the use of the globes. Contrary to the view of Sir
Richard Steele, that women should be characterised by a "tender fear,"
and "an inferiority which makes her lovely," we would have women
educated in resolution and courage, as a means of rendering them more
helpful, more self-reliant, and vastly more useful and happy.
There is, indeed, nothing attractive in timidity, nothing loveable in
fear. All weakness, whether of mind or body, is equivalent to deformity,
and the reverse of interesting. Courage is graceful and dignified,
whilst fear, in any form, is mean and repulsive. Yet the utmost
tenderness and gentleness are consistent with courage. Ary Scheffer, the
artist, once wrote to his daughter:-"Dear daughter, strive to be of good
courage, to be gentle-hearted; these are the true qualities for woman.
'Troubles' everybody must expect. There is but one way of looking at
fate--whatever that be, whether blessings or afflictions--to behave with
dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse both
for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and
again to renew the conflict--THIS is life's inheritance." [1412]
In sickness and sorrow, none are braver and less complaining sufferers
than women. Their courage, where their hearts are concerned, is indeed
proverbial:
"Oh! femmes c'est a tort qu'on vous nommes timides,
A la voix de vos coeurs vous etes intrepides."
Experience has proved that women can be as enduring as men, under the
heaviest trials and calamities; but too little pains are taken to teach
them to endure petty terrors and frivolous vexations with fortitude.
Such little miseries, if petted and indulged, quickly run into sickly
sensibility, and become the bane of their life, keeping themselves and
those about them in a state of chronic discomfort.
The best corrective of this condition of mind is wholesome moral and
mental discipline. Mental strength is as necessary for the development
of woman's character as of man's. It gives her capacity to deal with
the affairs of life, and presence of mind, which enable her to act with
vigour and effect in moments of emergency. Character, in a woman, as in
a man, will always be found the best safeguard of virtue, the best nurse
of religion, the best corrective of Time. Personal beauty soon passes;
but beauty of mind and character increases in attractiveness the older
it grows.
Ben Jonson gives a striking portraiture of a noble woman in these
lines:--
"I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softed virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to abide.
Only a learned and a manly soul,
I purposed her, that should with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
Of destiny, and spin her own free hours."
The courage of woman is not the less true because it is for the most
part passive. It is not encouraged by the cheers of the world, for it is
mostly exhibited in the recesses of private life. Yet there are cases
of heroic patience and endurance on the part of women which occasionally
come to the light of day. One of the most celebrated instances in
history is that of Gertrude Von der Wart. Her husband, falsely accused
of being an accomplice in the murder of the Emperor Albert, was
condemned to the most frightful of all punishments--to be broken alive
on the wheel. With most profound conviction of her husband's innocence
the faithful woman stood by his side to the last, watching over
him during two days and nights, braving the empress's anger and the
inclemency of the weather, in the hope of contributing to soothe his
dying agonies. [1413]
But women have not only distinguished themselves for their passive
courage: impelled by affection, or the sense of duty, they have
occasionally become heroic. When the band of conspirators, who sought
the life of James II. of Scotland, burst into his lodgings at Perth, the
king called to the ladies, who were in the chamber outside his room, to
keep the door as well as they could, and give him time to escape. The
conspirators had previously destroyed the locks of the doors, so
that the keys could not be turned; and when they reached the ladies'
apartment, it was found that the bar also had been removed. But, on
hearing them approach, the brave Catherine Douglas, with the hereditary
courage of her family, boldly thrust her arm across the door instead of
the bar; and held it there until, her arm being broken, the conspirators
burst into the room with drawn swords and daggers, overthrowing the
ladies, who, though unarmed, still endeavoured to resist them.
The defence of Lathom House by Charlotte de la Tremouille, the worthy
descendant of William of Nassau and Admiral Coligny, was another
striking instance of heroic bravery on the part of a noble woman. When
summoned by the Parliamentary forces to surrender, she declared that
she had been entrusted by her husband with the defence of the house,
and that she could not give it up without her dear lord's orders, but
trusted in God for protection and deliverance. In her arrangements for
the defence, she is described as having "left nothing with her eye to
be excused afterwards by fortune or negligence, and added to her former
patience a most resolved fortitude." The brave lady held her house and
home good against the enemy for a whole year--during three months of
which the place was strictly besieged and bombarded--until at length the
siege was raised, after a most gallant defence, by the advance of the
Royalist army.
Nor can we forget the courage of Lady Franklin, who persevered to the
last, when the hopes of all others had died out, in prosecuting the
search after the Franklin Expedition. On the occasion of the Royal
Geographical Society determining to award the Founder's Medal to Lady
Franklin, Sir Roderick Murchison observed, that in the course of a long
friendship with her, he had abundant opportunities of observing and
testing the sterling qualities of a woman who had proved herself worthy
of the admiration of mankind. "Nothing daunted by failure after failure,
through twelve long years of hope deferred, she had persevered, with
a singleness of purpose and a sincere devotion which were truly
unparalleled. And now that her one last expedition of the FOX, under the
gallant M'Clintock, had realised the two great facts--that her husband
had traversed wide seas unknown to former navigators, and died in
discovering a north-west passage--then, surely, the adjudication of the
medal would be hailed by the nation as one of the many recompences to
which the widow of the illustrious Franklin was so eminently entitled."
But that devotion to duty which marks the heroic character has more
often been exhibited by women in deeds of charity and mercy. The greater
part of these are never known, for they are done in private, out of the
public sight, and for the mere love of doing good. Where fame has come
to them, because of the success which has attended their labours in a
more general sphere, it has come unsought and unexpected, and is often
felt as a burden. Who has not heard of Mrs. Fry and Miss Carpenter
as prison visitors and reformers; of Mrs. Chisholm and Miss Rye as
promoters of emigration; and of Miss Nightingale and Miss Garrett as
apostles of hospital nursing?
That these women should have emerged from the sphere of private and
domestic life to become leaders in philanthropy, indicates no small,
degree of moral courage on their part; for to women, above all others,
quiet and ease and retirement are most natural and welcome. Very few
women step beyond the boundaries of home in search of a larger field of
usefulness. But when they have desired one, they have had no difficulty
in finding it. The ways in which men and women can help their neighbours
are innumerable. It needs but the willing heart and ready hand. Most
of the philanthropic workers we have named, however, have scarcely been
influenced by choice. The duty lay in their way--it seemed to be the
nearest to them--and they set about doing it without desire for fame, or
any other reward but the approval of their own conscience.
Among prison-visitors, the name of Sarah Martin is much less known than
that of Mrs. Fry, although she preceded her in the work. How she was led
to undertake it, furnishes at the same time an illustration of womanly
trueheartedness and earnest womanly courage.
Sarah Martin was the daughter of poor parents, and was left an orphan
at an early age. She was brought up by her grandmother, at Caistor,
near Yarmouth, and earned her living by going out to families as
assistant-dressmaker, at a shilling a day. In 1819, a woman was tried
and sentenced to imprisonment in Yarmouth Gaol, for cruelly beating and
illusing her child, and her crime became the talk of the town. The young
dressmaker was much impressed by the report of the trial, and the desire
entered her mind of visiting the woman in gaol, and trying to reclaim
her. She had often before, on passing the walls of the borough gaol,
felt impelled to seek admission, with the object of visiting the
inmates, reading the Scriptures to them, and endeavouring to lead them
back to the society whose laws they had violated.
At length she could not resist her impulse to visit the mother. She
entered the gaol-porch, lifted the knocker, and asked the gaoler for
admission. For some reason or other she was refused; but she returned,
repeated her request, and this time she was admitted. The culprit mother
shortly stood before her. When Sarah Martin told the motive of her
visit, the criminal burst into tears, and thanked her. Those tears and
thanks shaped the whole course of Sarah Martin's after-life; and the
poor seamstress, while maintaining herself by her needle, continued to
spend her leisure hours in visiting the prisoners, and endeavouring to
alleviate their condition. She constituted herself their chaplain and
schoolmistress, for at that time they had neither; she read to them from
the Scriptures, and taught them to read and write. She gave up an entire
day in the week for this purpose, besides Sundays, as well as other
intervals of spare time, "feeling," she says, "that the blessing of God
was upon her." She taught the women to knit, to sew, and to cut out;
the sale of the articles enabling her to buy other materials, and to
continue the industrial education thus begun. She also taught the men
to make straw hats, men's and boys' caps, gray cotton shirts, and even
patchwork--anything to keep them out of idleness, and from preying on
their own thoughts. Out of the earnings of the prisoners in this way,
she formed a fund, which she applied to furnishing them with work on
their discharge; thus enabling them again to begin the world honestly,
and at the same time affording her, as she herself says, "the advantage
of observing their conduct."
By attending too exclusively to this prison-work, however, Sarah
Martin's dressmaking business fell off; and the question arose with
her, whether in order to recover her business she was to suspend her
prison-work. But her decision had already been made. "I had counted the
cost," she said, "and my mind, was made up. If, whilst imparting
truth to others, I became exposed to temporal want, the privations so
momentary to an individual would not admit of comparison with following
the Lord, in thus administering to others." She now devoted six or seven
hours every day to the prisoners, converting what would otherwise have
been a scene of dissolute idleness into a hive of orderly industry.
Newly-admitted prisoners were sometimes refractory, but her persistent
gentleness eventually won their respect and co-operation. Men old in
years and crime, pert London pickpockets, depraved boys and dissolute
sailors, profligate women, smugglers, poachers, and the promiscuous
horde of criminals which usually fill the gaol of a seaport and county
town, all submitted to the benign influence of this good woman; and
under her eyes they might be seen, for the first time in their lives,
striving to hold a pen, or to master the characters in a penny primer.
She entered into their confidences--watched, wept, prayed, and felt
for all by turns. She strengthened their good resolutions, cheered the
hopeless and despairing, and endeavoured to put all, and hold all, in
the right road of amendment.
For more than twenty years this good and truehearted woman pursued her
noble course, with little encouragement, and not much help; almost
her only means of subsistence consisting in an annual income of ten or
twelve pounds left by her grandmother, eked out by her little earnings
at dressmaking. During the last two years of her ministrations, the
borough magistrates of Yarmouth, knowing that her self-imposed labours
saved them the expense of a schoolmaster and chaplain [14which they had
become bound by law to appoint], made a proposal to her of an annual
salary of 12L. a year; but they did it in so indelicate a manner as
greatly to wound her sensitive feelings. She shrank from becoming the
salaried official of the corporation, and bartering for money those
serviced which had throughout been labours of love. But the Gaol
Committee coarsely informed her, "that if they permitted her to visit
the prison she must submit to their terms, or be excluded." For
two years, therefore, she received the salary of 12L. a year--the
acknowledgment of the Yarmouth corporation for her services as gaol
chaplain and schoolmistress! She was now, however, becoming old and
infirm, and the unhealthy atmosphere of the gaol did much towards
finally disabling her. While she lay on her deathbed, she resumed
the exercise of a talent she had occasionally practised before in her
moments of leisure--the composition of sacred poetry. As works of art,
they may not excite admiration; yet never were verses written truer in
spirit, or fuller of Christian love. But her own life was a nobler poem
than any she ever wrote--full of true courage, perseverance, charity,
and wisdom. It was indeed a commentary upon her own words:
"The high desire that others may be blest
Savours of heaven."