Courage in Christian preaching emphasizes the boldness to act faithfully despite fear or danger, reflecting Christ's strength in adversity. Illustrations often use images of taking risks or standing firm in trials, encouraging believers to trust God’s protection and guidance (Joshua 1:9, 2 Timothy 1:7).
A martyr's calm heart amid death shows peace and courage when doing what is right.
A martyr was fastened to the stake, and the sheriff who was to execute him expressed his sorrow that he should persevere in his opinions, and compel him to set fire to the pile. The martyr answered, "Do not trouble yourself, for I am not troubling myself. Come and lay your hand upon my heart, and see if it does not beat quietly." His request was complied with, and he was found to be quite calm. "Now," said he, "lay your hand on your own heart, and see if you are not more troubled than I am; and then go your way, and, instead of pitying me, pity yourself!" When we have done right we need no man's pity, however painful the immediate consequences.
Belief that if others have done it, one can too, empowers courage and perseverance in challenges.
Mr. Edmund Driggs, of Brooklyn, gives a motto that came into his life like an influence, and greatly helped him toward success. At the age of fifteen he left home to engage with an older brother in the freighting business on the Hudson River. The first duty he performed on the vessel was to go aloft to reef the pennant-halyards through the truck of the topmast, which was forty feet above the top of the mainmast, without any rigging attached thereto. When the sailing-master had arranged the halyards over his shoulder, with a running bowline under his right arm, he ordered him aloft. The new sailor looked at the sailing-master and then aloft, and then asked the question, “Did anybody ever do that?” “Yes, you fool,” was the answer. “Do you suppose that I would order you to do a thing that was never done before?” The young sailor replied, “If anybody ever did it, I can do it.” He did it. That maxim has been his watchword through life. Tho he is now over seventy years of age, he is still engaged in active business life, and whatever enterprise he undertakes the watchword still is, “If anybody ever did it, I can do it.” (Text.)--WILBUR F. CRAFTS, “Successful Men of To-day.”
Lincoln kept Grant because he was a fighter despite widespread opposition.
Among the influential public men who were wild in their unreasonable prejudice against Grant and cried aloud for his dismissal, was Col. Alexander K. McClure, of Philadelphia. He could not see how the President could sustain himself if he persisted in retaining Grant. So he went to Washington to counsel with Mr. Lincoln, and urge him in the name of the people to remove Grant without delay. I will let the Colonel tell in his own way the result of his visit to the President:
“I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant’s continuance in command.... When I had said everything that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget: ‘I can’t spare this man; he fights.’ That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was safe in Lincoln’s hands against the countless hosts of enemies.”--COL. NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”
A lone farmer's courage and perseverance enabled him to build a railroad alone.
The Denver _Republican_ recently contained this brief account of a farmer working heroically on a one-man railroad, and remarked that it is typical of the individual spirit that has achieved great things in the West:
The story of the Kansas farmer, who, with a scraper and a pair of mules, is building a fifty-mile railroad, would indicate that the supply of courageous men is not entirely exhausted.
The farmer who is tackling this tremendous job alone and who is serenely indifferent to all the jeers of his neighbors, scorned to admit defeat when he could not interest any one with capital in the road which he deemed necessary. He went to work with such material as he had at hand and, somehow, even without seeing the man or knowing aught of his project, one can not help sharing the farmer’s belief that he is to “carry the thing through.”
Bold action and courage often overcome fear and hesitation in battle.
Many fail through over-caution. A course duly weighed, venture all.
In a more recent number of Robert L. Taylor’s magazine, a leading article speaks of Admiral Farragut, at Mobile. The _Brooklyn_ hesitated to go forward. “What’s the matter?” asked the Admiral. “Torpedoes,” replied the captain. “D----n the torpedoes,--full speed against the enemy!” He meant no profanity, but it was a time for action of the most pronounced sort. The best protection against the enemy’s fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns.
General Grant in the civil war of 1861–65 said, “The best defense of Washington is an army before Richmond.” These epigrammatic maxims are the best accepted fighting rules known to warfare to this day.
Effective military leadership requires readiness to confront and defeat the enemy decisively.
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Colonel Henderson, of the British Army, says in the _Science of War_:
The Federal strategy in the last year of the war, with Grant in command and Sherman his lieutenant, stands out in marked relief to the disjointed, partial, and complicated operations of the previous years.... Grant seems to have been the first to recognize that, as von Moltke puts it, the true objective of a campaign is the defeat of the enemy’s main army.... General Sheridan’s summing up of the handling of the Army of the Potomac, before Grant took command, is to the point: “The army was all right; the trouble was that the commanders never went out to lick anybody, but always thought first of keeping from getting licked.” Grant, like Moltke, was always ready to try conclusions.
Choosing bold struggle over safety exemplifies courageous ambition despite risk.
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Daisy Rinehart expresses a very common feeling in this poem:
I’m tired of sailing my little boat
Far inside of the harbor bar;
I want to be out where the big ships float--
Out on the deep, where the great ones are!
And should my frail craft prove too slight
For storms that sweep those wide seas o’er,
Better go down in the stirring fight
Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore!
--_Munsey’s Magazine._
Von Moltke's calmness in battle reassured others amid anxious uncertainty.
Speaking of that “anxious moment” in the decisive battle of Königgrätz before the arrival of the Crown Prince in the rear of the Austrians, Bismarck, according to Mr. Schurz’s autobiography in _McClure’s Magazine_, related the following incident showing von Moltke’s coolness:
It was an anxious moment, a moment on the decision of which the fate of the empire depended. Squadrons of cavalry, all mixt up, hussars, dragoons, uhlans, were streaming by the spot where the King, Moltke, and myself stood, and altho we had calculated that the Crown Prince might long have appeared behind the Austrian rear, no sign of the Crown Prince! Things began to look ominous. I confess I felt not a little nervous. I looked at Moltke, who sat quietly on his horse and did not seem to be disturbed by what was going on around us. I thought I would test whether he was really as calm as he appeared. I rode up to him and asked him whether I might offer him a cigar, since I noticed he was not smoking. He replied that he would be glad if I had one to spare. I presented to him my open case in which there were only two cigars, one a very good Havana, and the other of rather poor quality. Moltke looked at them and even handled them with great attention, in order to ascertain their relative value, and then with slow deliberation chose the Havana. “Very good,” he said composedly. This assured me very much. I thought, if Moltke can bestow so much time and attention upon the choice between two cigars, things can not be very bad.
The Duke of Wellington's calmness inspired steadiness among soldiers in battle.
During the battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington appeared frequently among his men. Sergeant Cotton, in his book “A Voice from Waterloo,” says:
Whenever the Duke came, which at this momentous period was often, there was a low whisper in the ranks “Here’s the Duke!” and all was steady as on parade. No matter what the havoc and destruction might be, the Duke was always the coolest man there; in the words of an eye-witness of this bloody scene, the Duke was coolness personified.
A sailor risked his life to retie a knot properly before being rescued at sea.
Michael Henry Ryan, able seaman on the liner _Philadelphia_, would rather drown than be rescued by means of a rope which had a poorly tied sailor’s knot in it. Ryan proved this by risking his life in mid-Atlantic waves until he could retie the knot.
The rescue in itself was one of the most remarkable in the history of the American line. The captain from the bridge saw Ryan go over the side. It was too rough to launch a boat and the liner was stopt almost in its own length and sent astern so that it drifted down upon the struggling seaman. A line was lowered.
When Ryan caught the rope he examined the knot. The sea was smashing him against the side of the ship.
“Who tied this knot?” he called out to the men on deck. And then he calmly untied the knot and retied it in his own way. All the while he gave his opinion of the lubbers on deck and their inability to tie a knot. Then he put the loop under his arms and called out to those above to haul him up.--Chicago _Tribune_.
Courage sees no defeat when facing enemies, trusting in God's strength.
When a soldier ran crying to Pelopidas, “We are fallen among the enemies, and are lost!” “How are we fallen among them any more than they among us?” replied the undaunted spirit. And when the soldiers of Marius complained of thirst, being encamped where there was no water, he pointed to a river running close to the enemy’s trenches, and bade them take the drink which valor could give them in that direction.
— JAMES T. FIELDS
Facing trials boldly challenges and conquers fear and adversity.
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“Evils faced are half-conquered.” Such seems to be the purport of this poem by John Finley:
I’d have the driving rain upon my face--
Not pelting its blunt arrows on my back,
Goading with blame along its ruthless track,
But flinging me defiance in the race.
And I would go at such an eager gait
That whatsoe’er may fall from heaven of wo
Shall not pursue me as some coward foe,
But challenge me--that I may face my fate.
(Text.)--_Harper’s Magazine._
God’s presence sustains courage through life’s valleys and trials.
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I have walked on the Mount of Gladness, I have wept in the Vale of
Tears,
And my feet have stumbled ofttimes as I trod through the path of
the years;
Yet my heart has ever lifted its song of thankful praise
To the God of all eternity, who has kept me in my ways,
Tho alone I tread the wine-press, or kneel in Gethsemane,
I know He has never forsaken, and that He leadeth me.
Tho I “walk through the Valley of Shadow,” my soul shall not be
dismayed,
For my God is the God of the fathers, the God of the unafraid!
--_Northwestern Christian Advocate._
Standing alone in truth requires courage and faithful conviction.
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It is easy to be courageous when backed by the crowd. It is different when one stands alone against the crowd.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Professor Simson, of Glasgow, was on trial in the General Assembly for dangerous heresy. He was convicted, and suspended from preaching and teaching. There were some who thought the sentence inadequate. Boston, of Ettrick, was one of them. He was a shy man. But no one else offering to rise, he rose, overcoming his timidity, to enter his dissent against the inadequate condemnation of Simson--to enter his dissent in his own name and in the names of all who would adhere to him, adding, amid solemn silence on the part of the assembly, “And for myself if nobody shall adhere.”
A missionary’s fearless peace mission amid danger shows trust in God’s protection.
See ACHIEVEMENT; FITNESS.
COURAGE, CHRISTIAN
During the Boxer rebellion the railroad tracks laid by the Russians in Manchuria were torn up, and the Russian troops were sent on an expedition to punish the Chinese insurgents. The Russians marched from city to city destroying and looting, meeting with practically no resistance. But at one place something unexpected happened, as told by Mr. H. J. Whigham in _V.C._ (London):
The Russians marched up to the gates and were just about to enter when the Boxers opened fire upon them. The army was withdrawn, the batteries were got out, and the general was just going to smash up the city when the Scotch missionary, Doctor Westwater (acting as interpreter) approached him and asked for a moment’s truce.
“I undertake,” he said, “to enter the city and to induce it to surrender without a shot being fired on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That there shall be no destruction and no looting; none whatever.”
The general yielded, and mounting his pony, Doctor Westwater rode forward to the city alone.
Now, when you consider that the city was full of Boxers, you will realize that it was a pretty considerable act of courage for a minister, of all men, to ride unarmed through those seething streets. This was what Westwater did. The city was a roaring hive of armed Boxers, muskets peeping from roof and window, and the streets ringing with the noise of arms. At the missionary quarters Doctor Westwater was fortunate enough to find a Christian convert, who conducted him to a place where the merchant gild were holding a sort of cabinet council.
Westwater explained matters, appealed to the citizens to avoid bloodshed, and pledged his word that neither destruction nor looting should mark the Russian occupation of their city. The appeal was successful, and he rode quietly back to the Russian general.
The general was an awful brute, as bad as he could be, but Westwater’s action seemed to impress him, and his orders were very exact. During his occupation of the city there was no single instance of crime. Westwater’s gallant action, too, imprest even the Boxers. They named him the savior of the town, and when, some months later, he took his departure for home, he was made the honored guest of extraordinary banquets, and was accompanied to the railway station by all the grateful citizens, half of them waving flags and half of them banging musical instruments.
Stories of courage inspire others to overcome discouragement and face trials boldly.
See TROUBLE BRAVELY MET.
COURAGE CONTAGIOUS
Charles Wagner, in “The Gospel of Life,” says:
You are struggling with difficulties, your look is troubled and your good will as well. One of those painful moments of strife and discouragement, when man is no longer anything but the shadow of himself, is passing over. In these circumstances a newspaper falls into your hands. In it you read that, on such and such a day, in the heart of Africa, surprized by an ambuscade, surrounded by enemies in superior numbers, an officer, who does not speak your language and who is not fighting for your cause, has kept calm; that, the better to show his tranquil resolution, he has, at a moment like that, before his troops, hemmed in, lost, lighted his cigar, recalled in few words the memory of the fatherland and the duty of a soldier; and then marched toward the enemy and to certain death. It is all told in three lines. And when you have read it, you arise, you come out of your depression, you organize your resistance; you look your trouble in the face, you feel high spirits, virility, a certain generous ardor for the strife. And all this life, this precious elasticity of courage that animates you, you owe to those who are unknown to you, to the vanquished, and to the dead lying out yonder without burial and without name. What a proof of what we can do for each other?
True courage is shown by how one faces trouble and death with resolve and faith.
This poem has been printed as anonymous and it has also been attributed to Edmund Vance Cook:
Did you tackle the trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven heart, and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it;
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it.
You’re beaten to earth. Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there--that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts,
It’s how did you fight, and why.
And tho you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die.
Doing what is right despite difficulty demonstrates true moral courage and integrity.
Mrs. George E. Pickett, wife of General Pickett, who led the fatal charge the last day at Gettysburg against the Union forces, writes of the tender memories she had of Grant. She called upon him with her husband while he was President. Grant knew that his old comrade of West Point had been made a poor man by the war, and he offered him the marshalship of Virginia. While sorely needing help, he appreciated the heavy draft made upon the President by office-seekers, and said: “You can’t afford to do this for me now, and I can’t afford to take it”; but Grant instantly replied with firmness, “I can afford to do anything I please that is right.”--Col. NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”
Hope in Christ empowers us to begin anew despite past failures and sorrows.
These lines from an unidentified source point a New Year’s lesson:
As a dead year is clasped in a dead December,
So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.
A new life is yours and a new hope. Remember
We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.
Stand out in the sunlight of promise, forgetting
Whatever the past held of sorrow or wrong.
We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;
We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.
Have you missed in your aim? Well, the mark is still shining.
Did you faint in the race? Well, take breath for the next.
Did the clouds drive you back? But see yonder their lining.
Were you tempted and fell? Let it serve as a text.
It is never too late to begin rebuilding
Tho all into ruins your life has been hurled,
For see how the light of the New Year is gilding
The wan, worn face of the bruised old world. (Text.)
Boldness in proclaiming truth is essential for living a faithful and authentic Christian life.
James Oppenheim, in a poem, “The Cry of Men,” writes this verse inciting to boldness in uttering our truth:
Then put off the coward--live with the Vision!
Let me go to my work in the morning
With fire of God, let me strike in the open, let me cry, cry aloud
the age dawning--
Let my life be real--faith in my heart! My eternity hangs on this day--
God in me dies or leaps godward as I thunder my yea or my nay!
True courage is acting rightly without apology, even when it conflicts with human rules.
Here is a story of Gen. Leonard Wood, told by a Boston physician in the New York _Times_:
One day an infant was brought in suffering from membranous croup. The case was so far advanced that any delay would almost certainly result in death for the little one. Dr. Wood did not hesitate a moment. He began to work at once, carefully, fearlessly, promptly, and successfully. Five minutes later, and while both mother and patient were still in the room, the surgeon who should have had the case according to rule, walked in. The young doctor (Wood) explained, but would not apologize, as he was asked to do. He had done right, and he was not going to tell any man he was sorry for it, he said. The result was that he was first suspended, and then dismissed. And I call that courage. (Text.)
Cowards appear brave only in numbers, but flee when confronted alone.
We see by the following account of English sparrows that any coward may seem brave when he is with the majority:
The English sparrow has been called pugnacious. He is nothing of the kind. He does not love a fight. Bird to bird, there is nothing too small to whip him. I have seen a chipping sparrow, which is the least among the pasture sparrows, send the poltroon scurrying to shelter with all his feathers standing on end. A cock bluebird, fighting like a gentleman, and like a gentleman fighting only when he must, will drive a half-dozen of them. The English sparrow has the true instincts of the browbeating coward, and loves to fight only when in overwhelming numbers he may attack a lone pasture bird without danger to himself.--WINTHROP PACKARD, “Wild Pastures.”
Brave deeds shape our eternal destiny and prepare us for heaven.
This prayer in verse is by Harry P. Ford:
Our Father, God, while life is sweet
With earthly joys that round it cling,
Grant us brave deeds, for heaven meet,
To shape the dreams that death may bring.
A wounded soldier chose to face death on the battlefield rather than in safety.
At Gettysburg a soldier in an ambulance heard the sound of battle. He arose to go. “Where are you going?” asked a comrade in a tone of remonstrance. “To the front,” said the wounded man. “What, in your condition!” “If I am to die,” he said, “I would rather die on the battle-field than in an ambulance.” (Text.)
Moral courage involves rejecting what dishonors God, even at personal cost.
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It counts for much when men in high station have the moral courage to condemn unworthy things.
President Taft walked out of a local theater in the first year he was President because he disapproved of the character of the play that was being produced. Friends of the President said that he was disgusted with the performance. The first act was too much for Mr. Taft and his sister-in-law. They saw nothing amusing, interesting or instructive in the depiction of typical scenes in a house of bad character. In order to avoid attracting attention and exciting comment by going out while the players were on the stage, they waited until the curtain fell on the first act and then left the theater.
True courage compels self-sacrifice even when others have fallen before you.
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Some laborers were working in a lime-kiln in the Pyrenees. One of them, descending into the kiln to look after something which had gone wrong, fell down suffocated. A second man, hurrying to his assistance, also fell. A third, fourth and fifth man followed, meeting the same fate. Only one remained. When he was about to jump, a woman who stood watching the tragedy, clutched him by the clothes and held him back. Later, to a magistrate who was holding an inquest, when asked why he attempted to make the self-sacrifice, the lone survivor replied: “My comrades were dying; I felt driven to go.”
Careful preparation and testing build confidence before taking bold action.
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The insect (a butterfly) flutters its wings as if to test their power before committing itself to the air; and frequently, after only a few seconds spent in this preparatory exercise, off it darts with astonishing rapidity. But others seem far more cautious. They vibrate their wings, sometimes with such rapidity that they are lost in a kind of mist, and with such power that their bodies would be carried suddenly into the air were they not firmly anchored by three pairs of hooked claws. Then, continuing the rapid vibration, they move slowly along, always holding on firmly by one or more legs, as if to still further satisfy themselves concerning the efficiency of their wings. Then they venture on a few short trial trips from one neighboring object to another, and at last gain sufficient confidence for a long voyage.--W. FURNEAUX, “Butterflies and Moths.”
Courageous faith can inspire lasting remembrance and artistic tribute after death.
Benjamin West’s picture of the death of Nelson is closely connected with an anecdote of the great sailor. Just before he went to sea for the last time, he was present at a dinner, during which he sat between the artist and Sir William Hamilton.
Nelson was expressing to Hamilton his regret that he had not, in his youth, acquired some taste for art and some discrimination in judging it.
“But,” said he, turning to West, “there is one picture whose power I do feel. I never pass a shop where your ‘Death of Wolfe’ is in the window without being stopt by it.”
West made some gracious answer to the compliment, and Nelson went on. “Why have you painted no more like it?”
“Because, my lord,” West replied, “there are no more subjects.”
“Ah!” said the sailor, “I didn’t think of that.”
“But, my lord,” continued West, “I am afraid your intrepidity will yet furnish me with another such scene; and if it should, I shall certainly avail myself of it.”
“Will you?” said Nelson. “Will you, Mr. West? Then I hope I shall die in the next battle!”
A few days later he sailed, his strangely exprest aspiration was realized, and the scene lives upon canvas.
Fear of man can cause even strong leaders to act timidly and selfishly.
Ex-President Roosevelt is usually pictured as proof against fear, but the New York _Times_ tells of an occasion when he admits that he was badly frightened.
It was on the evening of his first diplomatic reception as President, and the long and brilliant line headed by ambassadors, foreign ministers and attaches, and distinguished army and naval officers in gorgeous uniforms, was passing slowly before him. In this procession was a lady who knew the President quite well, and who confidently expected a hearty greeting. To her surprize, Mr. Roosevelt merely inclined his head over her hand, and bowed her on with the throng.
An hour later she met the President in the reception-room, and he spoke to her in the friendliest way.
“Why didn’t you come in time for the reception?” he asked.
“I did,” she replied, “and you did not even recognize me!”
“Impossible!” exclaimed the President, “but,” and he set his teeth together hard and whispered, “to tell you the truth, Mrs. ----, I was so fearful I wouldn’t do the right thing I could not think of anybody except myself!”
Heroism is demonstrated by a severely injured man warning others to save lives.
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The following dispatch from Mankato, Minn., is given by the Baltimore _Sun_:
With one foot cut off and his legs mangled, Rudolph Elmquist, an eighteen-year-old railroad operator, crawled a mile to his operating station and sounded a warning to Mankato, which saved probably one hundred lives.
Elmquist tried Friday night to get on the evening freight-train caboose for Mankato, where he boarded. He slipt and fell beneath the wheels. The freight crew saw him fall and feared he had been hurt. The train stopt about a mile away and began to back up to investigate.
The St. Paul passenger train was nearly due and the track was supposed to be clear for it. As one side of the curved track is along a high embankment and river, a disastrous crash was imminent.
Elmquist saw the train backing up the track and tried, waving his arms, to stop it. Failing to find him in the night, the freight crew prepared to go forward again.
Elmquist again tried to attract attention, but in vain. He then began dragging himself over the grass along the track to his station and reached his key about half an hour later, suffering torture.
He wired the Great Western operator at Mankato: “My foot is cut off and No. 271 is coming back to pick me up. She will have to have help against No. 142, which is due at Mankato in a few minutes.”
Then he fainted and fell across his desk. He was hurried to a hospital, where it was said both legs would have to be amputated.
Modest heroism is shown by quick action to save a man in peril on a bridge tower.
Bicycle Policeman Ajax Whitman, the strong man of the department, did a stunt on the new Queensboro Bridge, New York, that those who saw will never forget, and the feat is vouched for by a large crowd who witnessed the bike cop’s job.
Thomas Jones, of No. 102 Fourth Avenue, and Charles Schoener went over to the bridge to string lines of flags from the various towers. Both men are steeplejacks.
Jones went up the north tower of the bridge and Schoener the south. The men used their little steeplejack seats and pulled themselves up. They had rigged their ropes and pulleys and were preparing to pass a line from one to the other to string the flags across to their respective towers when Schoener saw Jones suddenly go limp in his seat at the top of the tower flagpole, fall forward against it and hang there.
“What’s wrong?” called Schoener.
“I’m gradually going,” was all Jones could call back.
Schoener slid down his flagpole as fast as he could, all the time calling for help.
Down on the roadway below the towers Whitman was walking along with his wheel. He looked up when he heard Schoener yelling and then he spotted Jones, who sagged forward in his seat like a lifeless man. Whitman dropt the bicycle and ran to the little spiral stairway that leads from the roadway to the top of the tower. Meantime, a large crowd had been attracted by the flagman’s peril. All vehicles at work on the bridge were stopt and people were running in all directions trying to devise some means of being of use. Whitman suddenly came out at the top of the tower.
Just as Whitman appeared in sight the seat in which Jones was sitting became loosened and as the seat started to go downward the decorator lost his balance and shot out of the seat head downward. Whitman braced himself against the foot of the flagpole and held out his arms. Jones’ limp body shot down and the big policeman acted as a net. The body fell just across Ajax’s big arms, and then both men went over in a heap as Jones’ weight carried the policeman from his stand against the foot of the pole.
Jones was unconscious and when the two men fell to the narrow flooring at the top of the tower he slipt from Whitman’s grasp and rolled toward the edge, over the river. Whitman made a desperate grab, got hold of Jones’ coat and held fast. Others below then regained their wits and ran up with Schoener and pulled the unconscious man back on the tower platform.
As for Whitman, if it hadn’t been that everybody stopt work to watch the accident and so blocked the bridge no report would have been made, but Whitman had to account for the block of vehicles on the roadway and he did so by stating that “an accident to a decorator caused a ten minutes’ block of traffic on the Queensboro Bridge.”
True heroism is volunteering for dangerous tasks despite the risk of death.
S. D. Gordon, in “The Sychar Revival,” gives an incident several times paralleled in the histories of warfare:
There is a simple story told about the time when the British were putting down a rebellion among the Ashanti tribes on the west coast of Africa. One morning the officer in command came to speak to the soldiers as they were drilling on the level stretch of land. He said, “Soldiers, I have a dangerous enterprise to-day. I need so many men. Every man that goes may lose his life. It is as serious as that. I am telling you frankly. I could draft you, but I don’t want to. I would like to ask for volunteers. I want those who will volunteer for Her Majesty’s sake to advance a pace.” They were drawn up in a straight line, and thinking the men might be influenced by his look he swung on his heel, and off, then back again and looked. The line stood as straight as before. His eye flashed fire. “What, not a single man to volunteer?” Then a fellow standing at the end of the line next to him saluted and said, modestly, “If you please, sir, every man has advanced one pace.”
Unwavering confidence in God’s power is stronger than impossible odds.
Colonel Zell, at the time when Grant was up for the Presidency, and when the Democratic watchword was, “Anything to beat Grant,” was addressing an enthusiastic meeting of Republicans, when a Democrat sang out, “It’s easy talkin’, colonel; but we’ll show you something next fall.” The colonel was a great admirer of Grant. He at once wheeled about and with uplifted hands, hair bristling, and eyes flashing fire, cried out: “Build a worm-fence ’round a winter supply of summer weather; catch a thunderbolt in a bladder; break a hurricane to harness; hang out the ocean on a grapevine to dry; but never, sir, never for a moment delude yourself with the idea that you can beat Grant.”--_Chambers’s Journal._
Nothing is impossible when faith and courage stand firm, as at Bunker Hill.
At the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, when it appeared that an accident was imminent by the surging of the crowds against the speakers’ platform, Webster requested the people to kindly move back. A man in the crowd answered back: “It is impossible!” Thereupon the great Massachusetts statesman cried out: “Impossible! Impossible! Nothing is impossible on Bunker Hill!”
— CHARLES E. LOCKE
True courage is needed to think independently and embrace new ideas.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson writes of an experience in the following lines:
It takes great strength to train
To modern service your ancestral brain;
To lift the weight of the unnumbered years
Of dead men’s habits, methods, and ideas;
To hold that back with one hand, and support
With the other the weak steps of the new thought.
It takes great strength to bring your life up square
With your accepted thought and hold it there;
Resisting the inertia that drags back
From new attempts to the old habit’s track.
It is so easy to drift back, to sink;
So hard to live abreast of what you think.
But the best courage man has ever shown
Is daring to cut loose and think alone.
Dark are the unlit chambers of clear space
Where light shines back from no reflecting face.
Our sun’s wide glare, our heaven’s shining blue,
We owe to fog and dust they fumble through;
And our rich wisdom that we treasure so
Shines from the thousand things that we don’t know.
But to think new--it takes a courage grim
As led Columbus over the world’s rim.
To think it cost some courage. And to go
— Try it. It takes every power you know
True strength is shown by cutting what resists, not what yields without resistance.
K
KEENNESS
The poets have celebrated the perfection of the Oriental steel; and it is recognized as the finest by Moore, Byron, Scott, Southey and many others. I have even heard a young advocate of the lost arts find an argument in Byron’s “Sennacherib,” from the fact that the mail of the warriors in that one short night had rusted before the trembling Jews stole out in the morning to behold the terrible work of the Lord. Scott, in his “Tales of the Crusaders,”--for Sir Walter was curious in his love of the lost arts--describes a meeting between Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin. Saladin asks Richard to show him the wonderful strength for which he is famous, and the Norman monarch responds by severing a bar of iron which lies on the floor of his tent. Saladin says, “I can not do that”; but he takes an eider-down pillow from the sofa, and, drawing his keen blade across it, it falls in two pieces. Richard says, “This is the black art; it is magic; it is the devil; you can not cut that which has no resistance”; and Saladin, to show him that such is not the case, takes a scarf from his shoulders, which is so light that it almost floats in the air, and, tossing it up, severs it before it can descend. George Thompson told me he saw a man in Calcutta throw a handful of floss-silk into the air, and a Hindu sever it into pieces with his saber.
— WENDELL PHILLIPS
Loyalty can compel one to protect others despite threats to personal safety.
* * * * *
The story of a little Boer boy who refused to betray his friends even on the threat of death, is told by Major Seely, M.P., as an illustration of deeply-rooted love of freedom and of country. It happened during the Boer war:
“I was asked,” said Major Seely, “to get some volunteers and try to capture a commandant at a place some twenty miles away. I got the men readily, and we set out. It was a rather desperate enterprise, but we got there all right. The Boer general had got away, but where had he gone? It was even a question of the general catching us, and not we catching the general. We rode down to the farmhouse, and there we saw a good-looking Boer boy and some yeomen. I asked the boy if the commandant had been there, and he said in Dutch, taken by surprize, ‘Yes.’ ‘Where has he gone?’ I said, and the boy became suspicious. He answered, ‘I will not say.’
“I decided to do a thing for which I hope I may be forgiven, because my men’s lives were in danger. I threatened the boy with death if he would not disclose the whereabouts of the general. He still refused, and I put him against a wall, and said I would have him shot. At the same time I whispered to my men, ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t shoot.’ The boy still refused, altho I could see he believed I was going to have him shot. I ordered the men to ‘Aim.’ Every rifle was leveled at the boy.
“‘Now,’ I said, ‘before I give the word, which way has the general gone?’ I remember the look in the boy’s face--a look such as I have never seen but once. He was transfigured before me. Something greater almost than anything human shone from his eyes. He threw back his head, and said in Dutch, ‘I will not say.’ There was nothing for it but to shake hands with the boy and go away.”--_Singapore Straits Budget._
Faithful loyalty may require enduring suffering rather than abandoning commitments.
* * * * *
A young girl came to headquarters faint and exhausted, her body covered with marks of cruel beatings administered by her father and brother. It was their way of convincing her that she must accept the offer of her former employer to give her more than twice the wages that she had received before the shirt-waist strike in New York, 1909, and to send an automobile to take her to and from work if she would return to her former position. That she could decline an offer of such magnificence was conclusive proof to them that a girl is too stupid to make her own decisions; so they proceeded to decide for her and to communicate their decision in their own vigorous fashion.
“Will you go?” asked the little group surrounding her.
“Never till I die,” was the unfaltering response, “unless the other girls be taken back, and unless we may stay by the union. To that did not we all pledge our word?” “But,” she added wearily, “I think they will kill me. See! Here it is that yesterday they pulled out so much of my hair. To-day, again, they beat me. To-morrow, surely, they will kill me. I can not bear more.”
When offered a place of safety and protection, she hesitated for a little time, then said, “My mother, she is away at work. Not to find me when she comes home at evening--that would trouble her. I must go home to her.”
The will which could not be conquered by force was coupled with loyalty, with love, no less unconquerable. The friend who had offered her protection understood, for she, too, was a woman.
Shall the stone and mortar and machinery of factories or the bank accounts of their owners be ranked as assets of greater value to the nation than the life, the health, the welfare, of such womanhood?--_The World To-day._
A mother's courageous love is shown in her willingness to share her child's suffering.
From his mother Ben Jonson received certain strong characteristics, and by a single short reference in Jonson’s works we are led to see the kind of woman she was. It is while Jonson is telling Drummond (who wrote the records of his life) of the occasion when he was thrown into prison, because some passages in the comedy of “Eastward Ho!” gave offense to King James, and he was in danger of a horrible death, after having his ears and nose cut off. He tells us how, after his pardon, he was banqueting with his friends, when his “old mother” came in and showed a paper full of “lusty strong poison,” which she intended to mix with his drink just before the execution. And to show that she “was no churl,” she intended first to drink of the poison herself. The incident is all the more suggestive from the fact that Chapman and Marston, one his friend and the other his enemy, were first cast into prison as the authors of “Eastward Ho!” and rough Ben Jonson at once declared that he too had had a small hand in the writing and went to join them in prison.--WILLIAM J. LONG, _English Literature_.
Despite paralysis, a man courageously prevents a train accident by acting in faithfulness.
Altho almost completely paralyzed, Fred J. Daniels, an engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, managed to save passenger train No. 2, which he was running, from colliding with the rear end of a freight train. The train was near Maxwell, Pa., when, leaning out of his cab window, Daniels saw the rear lights of a freight.
At the same time a bolt dropping from the locomotive struck the driving-rod and was hurled at him. It hit his forehead and drove him backward. His neck struck with great force against the brake lever, and he fell to the floor helpless. Despite the blow, however, he reached for the lever as he fell and in some manner threw it into a notch which set the safety-brakes, and the train stopt a few yards from the rear end of the freight.
When the fireman reached Daniels he was helpless, unable to move, and is now but little better.--Baltimore _American_.
Courage and steadfastness in early life can lead to lasting influence and recognition.
See COURAGE IN LIFE; STEDFASTNESS.
POET APPRECIATED
“If ‘W,’ at Haverhill, will continue to favor us with pieces as beautiful as the one inserted in our poetical department to-day, we shall esteem it a favor.” This note appeared in the _Free Press_, of Newburyport, Mass., June 8, 1826. The “W” referred to was John G. Whittier, then in his nineteenth year, and the editor of the _Free Press_ was William Lloyd Garrison, then in his twenty-first. “W” did continue to “favor us” with pieces quite as beautiful as the one inserted in the _Free Press_ in 1826; indeed, with pieces more and more beautiful, of a wider and deeper application to American life, until he was recognized--tho not till after many years--as the chief of the purely American poets, indebted to America and its life in the highest degree for his equipment in song.
The first piece of “original poetry”--we are told by the sons of Mr. Garrison, in their admirable life of their father--was found lying near the door in the office of the _Free Press_. The editor, having a strong tendency to tear “original” sin--verse or otherwise--to pieces, says he had a momentary impulse to dispose of this in that way, without reading it; but summoning the resolution so needful in an editor, he read the poem and published it. He had the courage, moreover, to inquire about the writer, and found him to be a “Quaker lad who was daily at work on the shoemaker’s bench, with hammer and lapstone, at East Haverhill. Jumping into a vehicle, I lost no time,” says the editor, “in driving to see the youthful rustic bard, who came into the room with shrinking diffidence, almost unable to speak, and blushing like a maiden.” The parents of the lad were poor, “unable to give him a suitable education,” and unwilling, as being unable to, let him indulge in the unprofitable but delightful pursuit of verse-making. “Poetry will not give him bread,” they said, as many a father has had to say. But the poet, proverbially “born, not made,” is not easily unmade, since nature presides at the birth and fosters her own.--_Journal of Education._
Effective proof can come from risking personal danger to confirm the truth.
In a military journal is related this incident of the ill-starred voyage of the Russian fleet to Eastern waters:
One day, during some gunnery practise, Admiral Rozhestvensky was greatly angered by the poor display made by a certain vessel, which he boarded in a towering rage. “Who is in command here?” he asked excitedly. “I am, sir,” replied an officer, stepping forward. “Consider yourself under arrest,” said Rozhestvensky; “your men are trained disgracefully.” “It is not my fault,” answered the officer. “Our shells won’t explode.” “I’ll soon see whether you are right,” thundered the admiral, and, taking up a small shell, he lit the fuse and held it out at arm’s length. If that shell had burst, both men would have been blown to atoms. But the fuse spluttered out, and the admiral remarked simply, “You are right. The fault is not yours. I will see to it that you have proper shells in future.”
The expedient of the admiral was exceedingly dangerous, but it was highly effective. This proof admits of no gainsaying. (Text.)
A soldier’s willingness to sacrifice life for his race shows courageous faithfulness.
R
RACE LOYALTY
Lieut. David J. Gilmer, of the Forty-ninth Volunteer Infantry (colored), commanding a detachment at Linao, was crediting his men for some good work they had done.
When he concluded, one of his men asked the lieutenant if he thought the Forty-ninth would be sent to China. The lieutenant said: “I don’t know, but I hope so.” Then some other soldier said: “Why, lieutenant, don’t you think we are doing enough?” The lieutenant said: “No! I wish that we could take part in all wars for our country; for the more good work we do the more benefit our race derives from it. If to sacrifice my life would cause our race to receive the same consideration in public affairs in the United States as other races, I would gladly walk out to any selected place and accept the death penalty.” (Text.)
Experiencing trials reveals the true meaning of courage and noble character.
It takes actual experience to bring realization of many things that we thought we knew before. This is the way one of the passengers of the illfated steamship _Republic_ (January 23, 1909) speaks of her experience:
“I have read sea stories,” she said, “and have read time and again of the command, ‘to the boats; women first,’ but, let me tell you, I knew what it meant last Saturday morning for the first time. Out of the fog-hidden night it came; I could not trace the speaker at first, as we all huddled on the deck. Out of the dark it came, straight and true and strong, and with all the chivalry of man at his highest behind it. ‘Women and children will enter the boat first.’ I think more of bravery now that I know what it means; I think more of manhood. I am glad I heard that command, as Captain Sealby hurled it at us through his megaphone.”
Shackelton's persistent purpose overcame illness to nearly reach the South Pole.
The famous antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackelton, has astonished his friends by his persistency of purpose. He was long ill during the progress of the “discovery” expedition. His lungs bled for months, but his indomitable purpose prevailed. He struggled heroically against a malady that threatened his life hour by hour. Before he set out he had looked at the map and said at a banquet, “Thanks, here’s to our success. I must not touch wine again until I return. I think we shall do it; at least we will try.” And he reached within ninety-seven miles of the South Pole, and returned to England sound and well.
Admiral Duncan resolved to fight until his ship sank, his flag still flying.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in “Virginibus Puerisque,” writes an account of a sea-fight in which he relates this:
Duncan, lying off the _Texel_ with his own flagship, the _Venerable_, and only one other vessel, heard that the whole Dutch fleet was putting to sea. He told Captain Hotham to anchor alongside of him in the narrowest part of the channel and fight his vessel till she sank. “I have taken the depth of the water,” added he, “and when the _Venerable_ goes down, my flag will still fly.” (Text.)
True courage shows in self-control even when facing public hostility and opposition.
President Taft was hissed by a number of women when he was courageous enough to confess at the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association that he was not altogether in favor of women having the right to vote. President Taft was welcoming the delegates to Washington, but told them frankly that he was not altogether in sympathy with the suffrage movement. He said he thought one of the dangers in granting suffrage to women is that women as a whole are not interested in it, and that the power of the ballot, so far as women are concerned, would be controlled “by the least desirable citizens.” When these words fell from the President’s lips the walls of the convention hall echoed a chorus of feminine hisses. It was no feeble demonstration of protest. The combined hisses sounded as if a valve on a steam-engine had broken, according to one correspondent. President Taft stood unmoved during the demonstration of hostilities, for the hisses lasted only a moment, and then smiling as he spoke he answered the unfavorable greeting with this retort: “Now, my dear ladies, you must show yourself capable of suffrage by exercising that degree of restraint which is necessary in the conduct of government affairs, by not hissing.” The women who had made the demonstration were duly rebuked. The suffrage cause was undoubtedly hurt by the demonstration, as the President, regardless of his personal views, is entitled to consideration and respectful attention.--_Wisconsin Farmer._
Cutting off retreat can strengthen resolve and lead to unexpected victory in adversity.
The battle of the Cowpens, altho hardly more than a skirmish when tried by modern standards, was in its day, according to the British historian Stedman, “a very principal link in the chain of circumstances which led to the independence of America.” To draw up an inferior force for a pitched battle directly in front of a broad river has always seemed to the military critics very imprudent. But this very act showed the daring and the foresight of Morgan. When blamed he afterward answered: “I would not have had a swamp in view of my militia on any consideration; they would have made for it, and nothing could have detained them from it.... As to retreat, it was the very thing I wished to cut off all hope of. I would have thanked Tarleton had he surrounded me with his cavalry.” Braver and shrewder words never were spoken by a military commander.
— THOMAS W. HIGGINSON
It is better to courageously face life's challenges than to live in fearful stagnation.
It is better to go down on the great seas which human hearts were made to sail than to rot at the wharves in ignoble anchorage.
— HAMILTON W. MABIE
Confident acceptance of challenges often leads to success.
When the little Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, a feeble youth at the beginning of his wonderful career, was presented to the convention of France as the man who could rescue the country from its peril, the president fixt his eye upon him dubiously and said: “Are you willing to undertake our defense?” “Yes,” was the calm and confident reply. “But are you aware of the magnitude of the undertaking?” asked the president again. “Fully,” said Napoleon, fixing his piercing eye upon the questioner, adding, “and I am in the habit of accomplishing that which I undertake.”
A similar self-confidence has often proved the one great secret of a successful career.
