Character Part 8

"Many loved Truth and lavished life's best oil, Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she had left behind her.

Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her, But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness." [141]

Socrates was condemned to drink the hemlock at Athens in his seventy-second year, because his lofty teaching ran counter to the prejudices and party-spirit of his age. He was charged by his accusers with corrupting the youth of Athens by inciting them to despise the tutelary deities of the state. He had the moral courage to brave not only the tyranny of the judges who condemned him, but of the mob who could not understand him. He died discoursing of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; his last words to his judges being, "It is now time that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better destiny is unknown to all, except to the G.o.d."

How many great men and thinkers have been persecuted in the name of religion! Bruno was burnt alive at Rome, because of his exposure of the fashionable but false philosophy of his time. When the judges of the Inquisition condemned him, to die, Bruno said proudly: "You are more afraid to p.r.o.nounce my sentence than I am to receive it."

To him succeeded Galileo, whose character as a man of science is almost eclipsed by that of the martyr. Denounced by the priests from the pulpit, because of the views he taught as to the motion of the earth, he was summoned to Rome, in his seventieth year, to answer for his heterodoxy. And he was imprisoned in the Inquisition, if he was not actually put to the torture there. He was pursued by persecution even when dead, the Pope refusing a tomb for his body.

Roger Bacon, the Franciscan monk, was persecuted on account of his studies in natural philosophy, and he was charged with, dealing in magic, because of his investigations in chemistry. His writings were condemned, and he was thrown into prison, where he lay for ten years, during the lives of four successive Popes. It is even averred that he died in prison.

Ockham, the early English speculative philosopher, was excommunicated by the Pope, and died in exile at Munich, where he was protected by the friendship of the then Emperor of Germany.

The Inquisition branded Vesalius as a heretic for revealing man to man, as it had before branded Bruno and Galileo for revealing the heavens to man. Vesalius had the boldness to study the structure of the human body by actual dissection, a practice until then almost entirely forbidden.

He laid the foundations of a science, but he paid for it with his life. Condemned by the Inquisition, his penalty was commuted, by the intercession of the Spanish king, into a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and when on his way back, while still in the prime of life, he died miserably at Zante, of fever and want--a martyr to his love of science.

When the 'Novum Organon' appeared, a hue-and-cry was raised against it, because of its alleged tendency to produce "dangerous revolutions," to "subvert governments," and to "overturn the authority of religion;"

[142] and one Dr. Henry Stubbe [14whose name would otherwise have been forgotten] wrote a book against the new philosophy, denouncing the whole tribe of experimentalists as "a Bacon-faced generation." Even the establishment of the Royal Society was opposed, on the ground that "experimental philosophy is subversive of the Christian faith."

While the followers of Copernicus were persecuted as infidels, Kepler was branded with the stigma of heresy, "because," said he, "I take that side which seems to me to be consonant with the Word of G.o.d." Even the pure and simpleminded Newton, of whom Bishop Burnet said that he had the WHITEST SOUL he ever knew--who was a very infant in the purity of his mind--even Newton was accused of "dethroning the Deity" by his sublime discovery of the law of gravitation; and a similar charge was made against Franklin for explaining the nature of the thunderbolt.

Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, because of his views of philosophy, which were supposed to be adverse to religion; and his life was afterwards attempted by an a.s.sa.s.sin for the same reason. Spinoza remained courageous and self-reliant to the last, dying in obscurity and poverty.

The philosophy of Descartes was denounced as leading to irreligion; the doctrines of Locke were said to produce materialism; and in our own day, Dr. Buckland, Mr. Sedgwick, and other leading geologists, have been accused of overturning revelation with regard to the const.i.tution and history of the earth. Indeed, there has scarcely been a discovery in astronomy, in natural history, or in physical science, that has not been attacked by the bigoted and narrow-minded as leading to infidelity.

Other great discoverers, though they may not have been charged with irreligion, have had not less obloquy of a professional and public nature to encounter. When Dr. Harvey published his theory of the circulation of the blood, his practice fell off, [143] and the medical profession stigmatised him as a fool. "The few good things I have been able to do," said John Hunter, "have been accomplished with the greatest difficulty, and encountered the greatest opposition." Sir Charles Bell, while employed in his important investigations as to the nervous system, which issued in one of the greatest of physiological discoveries, wrote to a friend: "If I were not so poor, and had not so many vexations to encounter, how happy would I be!" But he himself observed that his practice sensibly fell off after the publication of each successive stage of his discovery.

Thus, nearly every enlargement of the domain of knowledge, which has made us better acquainted with the heavens, with the earth, and with ourselves, has been established by the energy, the devotion, the self-sacrifice, and the courage of the great spirits of past times, who, however much they have been opposed or reviled by their contemporaries, now rank amongst those whom the enlightened of the human race most delight to honour.

Nor is the unjust intolerance displayed towards men of science in the past, without its lesson for the present. It teaches us to be forbearant towards those who differ from us, provided they observe patiently, think honestly, and utter their convictions freely and truthfully. It was a remark of Plato, that "the world is G.o.d's epistle to mankind;" and to read and study that epistle, so as to elicit its true meaning, can have no other effect on a well-ordered mind than to lead to a deeper impression of His power, a clearer perception of His wisdom, and a more grateful sense of His goodness.

While such has been the courage of the martyrs of science, not less glorious has been the courage of the martyrs of faith. The pa.s.sive endurance of the man or woman who, for conscience sake, is found ready to suffer and to endure in solitude, without so much as the encouragement of even a single sympathising voice, is an exhibition of courage of a far higher kind than that displayed in the roar of battle, where even the weakest feels encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm of sympathy and the power of numbers. Time would fail to tell of the deathless names of those who through faith in principles, and in the face of difficulty, danger, and suffering, "have wrought righteousness and waxed valiant" in the moral warfare of the world, and been content to lay down their lives rather than prove false to their conscientious convictions of the truth.

Men of this stamp, inspired by a high sense of duty, have in past times exhibited character in its most heroic aspects, and continue to present to us some of the n.o.blest spectacles to be seen in history. Even women, full of tenderness and gentleness, not less than men, have in this cause been found capable of exhibiting the most unflinching courage. Such, for instance, as that of Anne Askew, who, when racked until her bones were dislocated, uttered no cry, moved no muscle, but looked her tormentors calmly in the face, and refused either to confess or to recant; or such as that of Latimer and Ridley, who, instead of bewailing their hard fate and beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, went as cheerfully to their death as a bridegroom to the altar--the one bidding the other to "be of good comfort," for that "we shall this day light such a candle in England, by G.o.d's grace, as shall never be put out;" or such, again, as that of Mary Dyer, the Quakeress, hanged by the Puritans of New England for preaching to the people, who ascended the scaffold with a willing step, and, after calmly addressing those who stood about, resigned herself into the hands of her persecutors, and died in peace and joy.

Not less courageous was the behaviour of the good Sir Thomas More, who marched willingly to the scaffold, and died cheerfully there, rather than prove false to his conscience. When More had made his final decision to stand upon his principles, he felt as if he had won a victory, and said to his son-in-law Roper: "Son Roper, I thank Our Lord, the field is won!" The Duke of Norfolk told him of his danger, saying: "By the ma.s.s, Master More, it is perilous striving with princes; the anger of a prince brings death!". "Is that all, my lord?" said More; "then the difference between you and me is this--that I shall die to-day, and you to-morrow."

While it has been the lot of many great men, in times of difficulty and danger, to be cheered and supported by their wives, More had no such consolation. His helpmate did anything but console him during his imprisonment in the Tower. [144] She could not conceive that there was any sufficient reason for his continuing to lie there, when by merely doing what the King required of him, he might at once enjoy his liberty, together with his fine house at Chelsea, his library, his orchard, his gallery, and the society of his wife and children. "I marvel," said she to him one day, "that you, who have been alway hitherto taken for wise, should now so play the fool as to lie here in this close filthy prison, and be content to be shut up amongst mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, if you would but do as the bishops have done?"

But More saw his duty from a different point of view: it was not a mere matter of personal comfort with him; and the expostulations of his wife were of no avail. He gently put her aside, saying cheerfully, "Is not this house as nigh heaven as my own?"--to which she contemptuously rejoined: "Tilly vally--tilly vally!"

More's daughter, Margaret Roper, on the contrary, encouraged her father to stand firm in his principles, and dutifully consoled and cheered him during his long confinement. Deprived of pen-and-ink, he wrote his letters to her with a piece of coal, saying in one of them: "If I were to declare in writing how much pleasure your daughterly loving letters gave me, a PECK OF COALS would not suffice to make the pens." More was a martyr to veracity: he would not swear a false oath; and he perished because he was sincere. When his head had been struck off, it was placed on London Bridge, in accordance with the barbarous practice of the times. Margaret Roper had the courage to ask for the head to be taken down and given to her, and, carrying her affection for her father beyond the grave, she desired that it might be buried with her when she died; and long after, when Margaret Roper's tomb was opened, the precious relic was observed lying on the dust of what had been her bosom.

Martin Luther was not called upon to lay down his life for his faith; but, from the day that he declared himself against the Pope, he daily ran the risk of losing it. At the beginning of his great struggle, he stood almost entirely alone. The odds against him were tremendous. "On one side," said he himself, "are learning, genius, numbers, grandeur, rank, power, sanct.i.ty, miracles; on the other Wycliffe, Lorenzo Valla, Augustine, and Luther--a poor creature, a man of yesterday, standing wellnigh alone with a few friends." Summoned by the Emperor to appear at Worms; to answer the charge made against him of heresy, he determined to answer in person. Those about him told him that he would lose his life if he went, and they urged him to fly. "No," said he, "I will repair thither, though I should find there thrice as many devils as there are tiles upon the housetops!" Warned against the bitter enmity of a certain Duke George, he said--"I will go there, though for nine whole days running it rained Duke Georges."

Luther was as good as his word; and he set forth upon his perilous journey. When he came in sight of the old bell-towers of Worms, he stood up in his chariot and sang, "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."--the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise' of the Reformation--the words and music of which he is said to have improvised only two days before. Shortly before the meeting of the Diet, an old soldier, George Freundesberg, put his hand upon Luther's shoulder, and said to him: "Good monk, good monk, take heed what thou doest; thou art going into a harder fight than any of us have ever yet been in." But Luther's only answer to the veteran was, that he had "determined to stand upon the Bible and his conscience."

Luther's courageous defence before the Diet is on record, and forms one of the most glorious pages in history. When finally urged by the Emperor to retract, he said firmly: "Sire, unless I am convinced of my error by the testimony of Scripture, or by manifest evidence, I cannot and will not retract, for we must never act contrary to our conscience. Such is my profession of faith, and you must expect none other from me. HIER STEHE ICH: ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS: GOTT HELFE MIR!" [14Here stand I: I cannot do otherwise: G.o.d help me!]. He had to do his duty--to obey the orders of a Power higher than that of kings; and he did it at all hazards.

Afterwards, when hard pressed by his enemies at Augsburg, Luther said that "if he had five hundred heads, he would lose them all rather than recant his article concerning faith." Like all courageous men, his strength only seemed to grow in proportion to the difficulties he had to encounter and overcome. "There is no man in Germany," said Hutten, "who more utterly despises death than does Luther." And to his moral courage, perhaps more than to that of any other single man, do we owe the liberation of modern thought, and the vindication of the great rights of the human understanding.

The honourable and brave man does not fear death compared with ignominy.

It is said of the Royalist Earl of Strafford that, as he walked to the scaffold on Tower Hill, his step and manner were those of a general marching at the head of an army to secure victory, rather than of a condemned man to undergo sentence of death. So the Commonwealth's man, Sir John Eliot, went alike bravely to his death on the same spot, saying: "Ten thousand deaths rather than defile my conscience, the chast.i.ty and purity of which I value beyond all this world." Eliot's greatest tribulation was on account of his wife, whom he had to leave behind. When he saw her looking down upon him from the Tower window, he stood up in the cart, waved his hat, and cried: "To heaven, my love!--to heaven!--and leave you in the storm!" As he went on his way, one in the crowd called out, "That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on;" to which he replied: "It is so, indeed!" and rejoiced exceedingly. [145]

Although success is the guerdon for which all men toil, they have nevertheless often to labour on perseveringly, without any glimmer of success in sight. They have to live, meanwhile, upon their courage--sowing their seed, it may be, in the dark, in the hope that it will yet take root and spring up in achieved result. The best of causes have had to fight their way to triumph through a long succession of failures, and many of the a.s.sailants have died in the breach before the fortress has been won. The heroism they have displayed is to be measured, not so much by their immediate success, as by the opposition they have encountered, and the courage with which they have maintained the struggle.

The patriot who fights an always-losing battle--the martyr who goes to death amidst the triumphant shouts of his enemies--the discoverer, like Columbus, whose heart remains undaunted through the bitter years of his "long wandering woe"--are examples of the moral sublime which excite a profounder interest in the hearts of men than even the most complete and conspicuous success. By the side of such instances as these, how small by comparison seem the greatest deeds of valour, inciting men to rush upon death and die amidst the frenzied excitement of physical warfare!

But the greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not of a heroic kind. Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well as in historic fields of action. There needs, for example, the common courage to be honest--the courage to resist temptation--the courage to speak the truth--the courage to be what we really are, and not to pretend to be what we are not--the courage to live honestly within our own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others.

A great deal of the unhappiness, and much of the vice, of the world is owing to weakness and indecision of purpose--in other words, to lack of courage. Men may know what is right, and yet fail to exercise the courage to do it; they may understand the duty they have to do, but will not summon up the requisite resolution to perform it. The weak and undisciplined man is at the mercy of every temptation; he cannot say "No," but falls before it. And if his companionship be bad, he will be all the easier led away by bad example into wrongdoing.

Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action. The will, which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of decision--otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to follow good. Decision gives the power of standing firmly, when to yield, however slightly, might be only the first step in a downhill course to ruin.

Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency. Plutarch tells of a King of Macedon who, in the midst of an action, withdrew into the adjoining town under pretence of sacrificing to Hercules; whilst his opponent Emilius, at the same time that he implored the Divine aid, sought for victory sword in hand, and won the battle. And so it ever is in the actions of daily life.

Many are the valiant purposes formed, that end merely in words; deeds intended, that are never done; designs projected, that are never begun; and all for want of a little courageous decision. Better far the silent tongue but the eloquent deed. For in life and in business, despatch is better than discourse; and the shortest answer of all is, DOING. "In matters of great concern, and which must be done," says Tillotson, "there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution--to be undetermined when the case is so plain and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it,--this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to another, until he is starved and destroyed."

There needs also the exercise of no small degree of moral courage to resist the corrupting influences of what is called "Society." Although "Mrs. Grundy" may be a very vulgar and commonplace personage, her influence is nevertheless prodigious. Most men, but especially women, are the moral slaves of the cla.s.s or caste to which they belong. There is a sort of unconscious conspiracy existing amongst them against each other's individuality. Each circle and section, each rank and cla.s.s, has its respective customs and observances, to which conformity is required at the risk of being tabooed. Some are immured within a bastile of fashion, others of custom, others of opinion; and few there are who have the courage to think outside their sect, to act outside their party, and to step out into the free air of individual thought and action.

We dress, and eat, and follow fashion, though it may be at the risk of debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as according to the superst.i.tious observances of our cla.s.s. Though we may speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of "Mrs. Grundy" is universal.

But moral cowardice is exhibited quite as much in public as in private life. Sn.o.bbism is not confined to the toadying of the rich, but is quite as often displayed in the toadying of the poor. Formerly, sycophancy showed itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in high places; but in these days it rather shows itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in low places. Now that "the ma.s.ses" [146] exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, to flatter them, and to speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are credited with virtues which they themselves know they do not possess.

The public enunciation of wholesome because disagreeable truths is avoided; and, to win their favour, sympathy is often pretended for views, the carrying out of which in practice is known to be hopeless.

It is not the man of the n.o.blest character--the highest-cultured and best-conditioned man--whose favour is now sought, so much as that of the lowest man, the least-cultured and worst-conditioned man, because his vote is usually that of the majority. Even men of rank, wealth, and education, are seen prostrating themselves before the ignorant, whose votes are thus to be got. They are ready to be unprincipled and unjust rather than unpopular. It is so much easier for some men to stoop, to bow, and to flatter, than to be manly, resolute, and magnanimous; and to yield to prejudices than run counter to them. It requires strength and courage to swim against the stream, while any dead fish can float with it.

This servile pandering to popularity has been rapidly on the increase of late years, and its tendency has been to lower and degrade the character of public men. Consciences have become more elastic. There is now one opinion for the chamber, and another for the platform. Prejudices are pandered to in public, which in private are despised. Pretended conversions--which invariably jump with party interests are more sudden; and even hypocrisy now appears to be scarcely thought discreditable.

The same moral cowardice extends downwards as well as upwards. The action and reaction are equal. Hypocrisy and timeserving above are accompanied by hypocrisy and timeserving below. Where men of high standing have not the courage of their opinions, what is to be expected from men of low standing? They will only follow such examples as are set before them. They too will skulk, and dodge, and prevaricate--be ready to speak one way and act another--just like their betters. Give them but a sealed box, or some hole-and-corner to hide their act in, and they will then enjoy their "liberty!"

Popularity, as won in these days, is by no means a presumption in a man's favour, but is quite as often a presumption against him. "No man,"

says the Russian proverb, "can rise to honour who is cursed with a stiff backbone." But the backbone of the popularity-hunter is of gristle; and he has no difficulty in stooping and bending himself in any direction to catch the breath of popular applause.

Where popularity is won by fawning upon the people, by withholding the truth from them, by writing and speaking down to the lowest tastes, and still worse by appeals to cla.s.s-hatred, [147] such a popularity must be simply contemptible in the sight of all honest men. Jeremy Bentham, speaking of a well-known public character, said: "His creed of politics results less from love of the many than from hatred of the few; it is too much under the influence of selfish and dissocial affection." To how many men in our own day might not the same description apply?

Men of sterling character have the courage to speak the truth, even when it is unpopular. It was said of Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, that he never sought after popular applause, or prided himself on it: "He more delighted to do well than to be praised, and never set vulgar commendations at such a rate as to act contrary to his own conscience or reason for the obtaining them; nor would he forbear a good action which he was bound to, though all the world disliked it; for he ever looked on things as they were in themselves, not through the dim spectacles of vulgar estimation." [148]

"Popularity, in the lowest and most common sense," said Sir John Pakington, on a recent occasion, [149] "is not worth the having. Do your duty to the best of your power, win the approbation of your own conscience, and popularity, in its best and highest sense, is sure to follow."

When Richard Lovell Edgeworth, towards the close of his life, became very popular in his neighbourhood, he said one day to his daughter: "Maria, I am growing dreadfully popular; I shall be good for nothing soon; a man cannot be good for anything who is very popular." Probably he had in his mind at the time the Gospel curse of the popular man, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."

Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence and self-reliance of character. A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another. He must exercise his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments.

He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions. It has been said that he who dare not form an opinion, must be a coward; he who will not, must be an idler; he who cannot, must be a fool.

But it is precisely in this element of intrepidity that so many persons of promise fall short, and disappoint the expectations of their friends.

They march up to the scene of action, but at every step their courage oozes out. They want the requisite decision, courage, and perseverance.

They calculate the risks, and weigh the chances, until the opportunity for effective effort has pa.s.sed, it may be never to return.

Men are bound to speak the truth in the love of it. "I had rather suffer," said John Pym, the Commonwealth man, "for speaking the truth, than that the truth should suffer for want of my speaking." When a man's convictions are honestly formed, after fair and full consideration, he is justified in striving by all fair means to bring them into action.

There are certain states of society and conditions of affairs in which a man is bound to speak out, and be antagonistic--when conformity is not only a weakness, but a sin. Great evils are in some cases only to be met by resistance; they cannot be wept down, but must be battled down.