Article July 31, 1915 Issue

Moral Courage

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE

Some one whimsically defined courage as "having done the thing before," by this meaning that a man who had been in one fight would have less trepidation in entering the next, and so by a process of experience in contest come to be intrepid. Possibly this may be the course of physical courage, and in result it may follow from a learning of the bodily powers and endurance, or sometimes from a trying out of the resources of cunning.

In the first year of Saul's reign, his son Jonathan induced a contest with the Philistines by taking possession of the garrison at Geba. Later, when the war was in operation, he performed a feat which made the whole army love him. With only his armor-bearer to assist him, he clambered up the rocks into a garrison of the Philistines, and with vehement slaughter laid low a score of their men, so that a panic spread through the enemies' ranks. When later he satisfied his hunger, unaware of his father's foolish adjuration cursing any one who should eat food before sundown, and the king after the drawing of lots had discovered him and thought that he must put him to death, the people rescued him because of their admiration for his courage.

But the courage which is of value in the world is distinct from that which has destruction as its purpose, and it carries with it its own descriptive adjective. It is spoken of as moral courage. Sometimes it is shown simply by living a true life under difficulties. Alexander Pope, whose "Essay on Man" presents so many quotable sayings declaring his vision of the dominion and duty of man, was in his mere living an example of courage which illustrates in a degree what Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 172), that "the unfortunate cripple may present more nobility than the statuesque athlete." Moral courage has been exhibited by every great man who has tried to lift his brethren above the degradation of the times. It is a great test of a man when he is willing to be the object of misunderstanding and ridicule in his own age in order that a better age may come. The development of this courageousness proceeds by degrees, and it is more often a combat with that which is within than with what is externally visible.

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