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.

Daniel had moral courage when he stood fast against the proposal that he and the other Hebrew children should be treated as others were in the civil service school. "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank." This was so connected with the idolatry of the court that the pure-minded youth revolted from the contamination. He had the wisdom to release his friend the prince of the eunuchs from solicitude regarding the result, and to find a way out of the difficulty for him by showing how his charges could thrive better on the simple food of their own choice. Throughout the glory of two reigns Daniel held his strength as the revelator of truth to the monarchs who ruled. Then came the overthrow of Babylon and the dominion of Darius, who in bringing order into the kingdom made Daniel the prime president over the princes set over the kingdom. The plot of the presidents and princes is familiar to Bible students, as is the demonstration of Daniel whereby animality was controlled, and he found no hurt when thrown among the lions, "because he believed in his God." By his moral courage he thus proved to Darius the power of God, and caused him to say, "He is the living God, and steadfast forever."

We might say, then, that the office of the man of moral courage is to convince men concerning God. Christian Science gives a new meaning to the term so often used to describe the man of integrity,—"a man of principle." The opposite of this is the unprincipled man, who is a seeker after present advantage and a time-server. When the meaning of Principle becomes clear in the world through the witness borne by men and women obedient thereto, then multitudes on earth will be as those who from a troubled dream awake to find that the sin and error whereby they were in torment can no more control. It may soon be said that the prophecy is fulfilled which declares that "a nation shall be born in a day."

Across the continent heavy trains like elongated shuttles roll swiftly from ocean to ocean. The observer finds that city groups of houses, buildings by the way, or roadside stations, bulk largely for a moment to the sight, then rapidly dwindle behind till they are lost in the gray distance; but at intervals are semaphores guarding the right of way, and at night each light twinkles faithfully, as if it were a star set steadfastly to guide. So in history: the exalted, the rich, the powerful of each period, dwindle into common oblivion, but here and there is the beacon-light of some noble life "of whom the world was not worthy," whose example of moral courage remains like a star testifying to God's light.

It is hard to put into language a description of the aggressive contempt, infidelity, and personal hostility expressed to Washington by some of his contemporaries, by the very men for whose benefit his brave life was spent. Later generations, which look not through the red mists of hate, increasingly value his work, seeing that for the world it was accomplished. The nation which was then his antagonist in war, acknowledges his rectitude and its own mistake; and hemisphere joins with hemisphere in gratitude for his moral courage, whereby the political freedom of mankind was advanced.

Another light shines out as the years recede, and we increasingly appreciate the kindness and strength of Lincoln the emancipator. He too experienced in his time the utmost of vituperation, and carried on his gentle life's labor unsuspected of the greatness which time is revealing. He chose for important duty men capable of serving the country, ignoring their personal insults, because he held a philosophy of life that could not reciprocate hatred. One of a multitude of schemes of murderous hate was finally worked out, and his name was thus placed upon the list of martyrs to whom succeeding generations raise monuments. The martyrs were men in advance of their times, bringing good for which their age was incompletely ready, that this good should be the inheritance of those following.

Mrs. Eddy speaks of moral courage as being "the king of the mental realm" (Science and Health, p. 514). If ever there was a time when moral courage was requisite, it is now. The world is testing to an extreme a long lasting false belief. When discernment comes that to "overcome evil with good" is the way of settlement whereby the "honor" of nations is made secure; when reliance on brute force, subtlety, and the "emergency measures" of hatred, discloses itself as the reed upon which if a man leans it not only breaks, but also pierces his hand in the process,—then will come the lifting of hands in prayer, and the call of many voices inquiring for the better way. The Christian Scientists of the world know the answer; but it is not by chatter of the tongue that it is given to others. By demonstration alone it is revealed.

Our thought would be incomplete did we omit to speak of the champion of the freedom of man who followed the country's founder and the great emancipator, and "sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ's divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 226). To return for evil a greater evil seems the ideal of physical courage, but to return good for evil shows moral courage, and reveals manliness dominant above animality.

When the Discoverer of Christian Science, a gentle, loving woman holding forth to her contemporaries a treasure of incomputable value, first experienced the shock of knowing the world's hatred of goodness, she may have been tempted to refrain from giving to the world the results of her discovery; but it was her moral courage, tested in many a conflict of greater moment than any battle recorded by historians, which enabled her to endure, to return blessing for vituperation, and thus to become the whole world's benefactor as the Founder of Christian Science. We need not waste words in describing the mental wickedness that opposed her efforts. The victory is not greatened by description of the vanquished, as in the historian's page. It is the demonstration of divine power, which is as light appearing,—and who that rejoices in the light cares to have the superseded darkness described?

Copyright, 1915, by The Christian Science Publishing Society