Moral Courage in Defense of Truth.
By Weaver
There is a marked and wide difference between physical and moral courage. Physical courage is bravery in physical danger, as when one places his life in peril for a fellow, or rushes into deadly conflict, inspired by the spirit and example of comrades, and the strains of martial music. It may be fostered by ignorance and want of reflection, and often culminates in blind desperation. Many a man has become a coward by opening his eyes to his perilous situation. Moral courage is the opposite of blind impulse or passion. This is nurtured by intelligence and strengthened by reflection. Moral courage includes, on the one hand, a comprehensive view of obligations, and on the other a determination to be true to the conscientious conviction, at all hazards. Its possessor needs no other incentives to duty than those which his own mind suggests. The intelligent Christian martyr lays down his life for Christ, not because he is urged on by blind impulse, but because he is controlled by a view that looks beyond the present. In a word, he has moral courage, who, under the pressure of any and every dissuasive motive, is loyal to truth. The necessity of this virtue becomes apparent by a hasty glance at life, as it is seen in politics and religion. Men in almost every department of life's service are urged to action by motives, whose originating and vitalizing principle is private, partisan or sectarian selfishness; while emolument and preferment, alike in the Church and the State, often come only to him who can sacrifice on this altar. “We admit,” it is sometimes said, “that your principle is right and your views are correct, but yet, things being as they are, society being what it is, these cannot be regarded as inviolable. Though right, if they are not abandoned altogether, they must be at least partially disregarded.” In fine such is the demand, and the supply must correspond to it, even though the demand be the result of a diseased moral or intellectual state, and a compliance with it be not the cure for the disease, but its perpetuation and aggravation. Hence the ever-recurring requisition, not for him who is clear-headed and right-hearted, but for the “available man.” The story of men's being elected not because of personal worth, but in order to conciliate certain sections and secure their votes, has been a thousand times told. Such is the political market, and he who would sell his wares in it must cater to the demand. It had been well if nothing analogous to this had ever been known in the history of the church, but no small part of Christ's work is the driving out of the buyers and sellers from the sacred temple. This standard brought him into direct conflict with established customers. The whole bent and force of his life, as well as the principles he maintained, were directly opposed to popular expectation and prejudice. He had continually on the one hand to repel the temptation of worldly gain and honor, and on the other, that of reproach and persecution. They sought to influence him by almost every conceivable motive to disregard his all-pervasive convictions of truth, and pledge himself to pander their national vanity. They said: “Take this course and we are with you, take its opposite and we are against you; do the one and we will crown you, do the other and we will crucify you.” But the tempter came to find nothing in him whereby he might overthrow him. No price could be offered for which Christ would barter away his convictions or lower his standard. The work so nobly begun, he has committed to all his people, but in an especial sense to his ministers. A soldier, who had borne through many a hard-fought battle, the ensign of his country, as he was falling in death, while scaling the enemy's breast-work, raised it aloft, crying “take it boys, it has not touched the ground!” The standard which Christ bore, he has intrusted to the hands of those, whether laity or clergy, who, in his stead, beseech men to be reconciled to God. The church or minister that to-day lifts up the Bible standard for the people, needs to be armed with the moral courage of the Master. If the people among whom this standard is to be raised had all accepted it and were in full fellowship with the principles which it represents, it were an easy task to drift in the popular current. But it is quite another thing when this standard is to be elevated, not only among those who already have one of their own, but whose standard is as much lower than it, as that of which man is the author is lower than that of which God is the author. But the truths of the gospel are in hopeless antagonism to the prevailing motives of men. Christianity seeks not simply to put an end to overt acts of sin, but to destroy its seat in the heart, aiming a deadly blow at pride, self-righteousness and selfishness in every form. It teaches men their helplessness, as well as their guilt; that they are equally unable to escape from their bondage, and to implant within themselves that principle, without which they are as sure of destruction as a falling body is to follow the law of gravitation. But Christianity does not simply reach forth a hand to rescue men from ruin, it points them to a noble life of toil and self-sacrifice. It requires an unceasing conflict with self-seeking, and the making of its interests first, and all-controlling. Now, when the different classes of persons to whom these truths are addressed are remembered, the necessity for moral courage in him who proclaims and defends the truth becomes apparent. Though they might despise him who should preach “any other gospel,” as well as the church that should sustain him in his unfaithfulness, they yet have little sympathy for the true gospel, and for him who is faithful to the immortal interests committed to his hands. If he presents these two alternatives, Christ and salvation, neglect of him and destruction, he may be charged with being uncharitable and narrow. To avoid this charge comes the temptation to muffle the keen edge of truth, and to prophesy the smooth things that lull to security. If there be persons of culture and fastidious taste in literature, but of strong and manifest opposition to the distinctive teachings of Christianity in the assemblage, he encounters a peril before which no mean courage can stand with composure and fidelity. It requires also no small degree of moral courage to enforce the full claims of religion upon some of its professed adherents. Nothing but this can give nerve to hold steadily in the faces of delinquents their neglected duties; to place before them a mirror in which they shall see their guilt, and the consequences of their unfaithfulness. This can be done once with comparatively little courage, but the severe test comes when, after having been reminded of obligations a hundred times, it is necessary to remind of them the hundred and first. Moral courage is further demanded to secure strict adherence to the Scripture methods of Christian life and labor. The New Testament method of building up the kingdom of Christ is not simply through the devoted life of church officials, but through the consecration of the church as a body. It was not when the priests, but when the people had a mind to work, that the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. It was when the entire community of believers was with one accord in one place, that the three thousand were added to the faithful. The Scriptural method, moreover, requires that the Christian life should be perpetual in its movement; that he who has been created anew should grow up into a stature required by the laws of his new nature. These two fundamental principles at the present day are to a great extent disregarded. An attempt is made to shift responsibility from the church, as a body, to its ministers. The implication is that it is only through public functionaries that the gospel becomes the power of God unto salvation. A growing disposition everywhere shows itself to make the Christian life periodical rather than perpetual. Individuals and churches attempt through high pressure to do up the religion of a year, or a lifetime, in a few weeks. This popular tendency to shift responsibility, and to make the religious life one of periodic excitement and inactivity, every Christian minister and church is to-day compelled to oppose or encourage. They must determine whether they will contribute to the multiplication of churches that are ever oscillating between the extremes of fever heat and ague chills, or help to arrest this blighting evil, and secure a growth whose accretions shall be as constant as the return of the seasons, a spiritual life which shall be as unfailing as is its course. But he who has unfailing moral courage in the defense and enforcement of truth, is animated by love for it. Truth must have so captivated him that whenever she summons him to her defense and service, he answers spontaneously to the call. He does not stay to think of contingencies, but goes straight to his duty with all the force of his being. He does this not only when it is obvious that loyalty to truth is expedient, but when it is not thus obvious, for “the part of a lover of truth is to follow her at all hazards, after the example of him who came into the world that he might bear witness unto the truth.” Constraining love for truth involves harmony between it and the moral nature. He in whose heart truth meets no response, is entirely opposed to her interests, while the boldness of him who defends her is always in proportion to the ruling power or passion of his soul. Hence the harmony between Christ's moral nature and the truth being perfect, his adherence to truth was also perfect. But moral courage that is equal to every emergency comes only through such strong faith in God that it cannot be shaken. Faith is to moral courage what the root is to the tree. As the tree cannot live except as it draws its life through the root from the ground, so moral courage cannot exist except as it draws its life through faith from God. When Peter began to doubt, he began to sink, and when his faith failed him he denied his Lord, while Paul declares that his courageous life was one of faith upon the Son of God.—Weaver.