The courage which is tested in times of terror, on the battle-field, in
the sinking ship, the poisoned mine, the blazing house, presents but
one small side of a great subject. Such testing times come to few, and
to these not often in their lives. But on the other hand, the daily
life of every one of us teems with occasions which will try the temper
of our courage as searchingly, though not as terribly, as battle-field
or fire or wreck. For we are born into a state of war; with falsehood
and disease, and wrong and misery in a thousand forms lying all around
us, and the voice within calling on us to take our stand as men in the
eternal battle against these.
And in this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us
single-handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good
fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be
loyalty to truth—the most rare and difficult of all human qualities.
For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of
us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and
higher.
And this is the great lesson which we shall learn from Christ’s life,
the more earnestly and faithfully we study it. “For this end was I
born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to
the truth.” To bear this witness against avowed and open enemies is
comparatively easy; but, to bear it against those we love; against
those whose judgment and opinions we respect, in defense or furtherance
of that which approves itself as true to our own inmost conscience,
this is the last and abiding test of courage and of manliness.