It was a saying of a wise man, that "he who fears God can fear nothing
else"; and there is certainly no healthy way in which we can be
delivered from that fear of the world which destroys moral courage,
but the learning to fear, above all things, failing to fulfil our duty
before God. If we would have moral courage, we must accustom ourselves
to feel that we are accountable to God, and to him only, for what we do.
There is a spurious moral as well as intellectual courage, the offspring
of pride and arrogance, that pretends to independence in a spirit of
defiance of the opinion of the world; but this will never give us the
power to act wisely, for wisdom is ever the twin sister of charity
that loves the neighbor even while differing from him in opinion. True
courage of every kind is perfectly self-possessed, but never defiant. A
spirit of defiance springs from envy or hate if it be honest, and from
a consciousness of inferiority if assumed; and is sometimes only a
disguise self-assumed by fear, when it seeks to be unconscious of
itself. True moral courage results from the hope that we are acting
in harmony with the laws of eternal wisdom. Fear of every kind is
annihilated by a living hope that the Lord is on our side.
If we would test the quality of our moral courage, we must ask
ourselves, is it defiant? is it disdainful? is it envious? does it hate
its neighbor? or are its emotions affected in any way by the opinion of
the world? If we can answer all these questions in the negative, we must
go a step farther, and ask if we have gained a state of independence of
our own selfish passions, as well as of the world; for our most
inveterate foes, and those before whom we cower most abjectly, are often
those that dwell within the household of our own hearts.
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