True Manliness

I will take two or three at hazard from a book in which they abound, and which was a great favorite some years ago, as I hope it is still, I mean Napier’s Peninsular War. At the end of the storming of Badajos, after speaking of the officers, Napier goes on: “Who shall describe the springing valor of that Portuguese grenadier who was killed the foremost man at Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman, who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and then suffered the enemy to dash his head in pieces with the end of their muskets.”

Again, at the Coa: “A north-of-Ireland man, named Stewart, but jocularly called ‘the boy,’ because of his youth, nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength, who had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence beyond the river, was one of the last men who came down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning round he regarded the French with a grim look, and spoke aloud as follows, ‘So this is the end of our brag. This is our first battle, and we retreat! The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.’ Then striding forward in his giant might he fell furiously on the nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them.”

“Still more touching, more noble, more heroic, was the death of Sergeant Robert McQuade. During McLeod’s rush, this man, also from the north of Ireland, saw two men level their muskets on rests against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy. The present Adjutant-general Brown, then a lad of sixteen, attempted to ascend at the fatal spot. McQuade, himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, saying in a calm, decided tone, ‘You are too young, sir, to be killed,’ and then offering his own person to the fire, fell dead pierced with both balls.” And, speaking of the British soldier generally, he says in his preface, “What they were their successors now are. Witness the wreck of the Birkenhead, where four hundred men, at the call of their heroic officers, Captains Wright and Girardot, calmly and without a murmur accepted death in a horrible form rather than endanger the women and children saved in the boats. The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion.”

Let us add to these two very recent examples: the poor colliers who worked day and night at Pont-y-pridd with their lives in their hands, to rescue their buried comrades; and the gambler in St. Louis who went straight from the gaming-table into the fire, to the rescue of women and children, and died of the hurts after his third return from the flames.

Looking, then, at these several cases, we find in each that resolution in the actors to have their way, contempt for ease, and readiness to risk pain or death, which we noted as the special characteristics of animal courage, which we share with the bulldog and weasel.

So far all of them are alike. Can we get any further? Not much, if we take the case of the rifleman who thrust his head under the sword-blades and allowed his brains to be knocked out sooner than draw it back, or that of “the boy Stewart.” These are intense assertions of individual will and force – avowals of the rough hard-handed man that he has that in him which enables him to defy pain and danger and death – this and little or nothing more; and no doubt a very valuable and admirable thing as it stands.

But we feel, I think, at once, that there is something more in the act of Sergeant McQuade, and of the miners in Pont-y-pridd – something higher and more admirable. And it is not a mere question of degree, of more or less, in the quality of animal courage. The rifleman and “the boy Stewart” were each of them persistent to death, and no man can be more. The acts were, then, equally courageous, so far as persistency and scorn of danger and death are concerned. We must look elsewhere for the difference, for that which touches us more deeply in the case of Sergeant McQuade than in that of “the boy Stewart,” and can only find it in the motive. At least, it seems to me that the worth of the last lies mainly in the sublimity of self-assertion, of the other in the sublimity of self-sacrifice.

And this holds good again in the case of the Birkenhead. Captain Wright gave the word for the men to fall in on deck by companies, knowing that the sea below them was full of sharks, and that the ship could not possibly float till the boats came back; and the men fell in, knowing this also, and stood at attention without uttering a word, till she heeled over and went down under them. And Napier, with all his delight in physical force and prowess, and his intense appreciation of the qualities which shine most brightly in the fiery action of battle, gives the palm to these when he writes, “The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion.” He was no mean judge in such a case; and, if he is right, as I think he is, do we not get another side-light on our inquiry, and find that the highest temper of physical courage is not to be found, or perfected, in action but in repose. All physical effort relieves the strain and makes it easier to persist unto death under the stimulus and excitement of the shock of battle, or of violent exertion of any kind, than when the effort has to be made with grounded arms. In other words, may we not say that in the face of danger self-restraint is after all the highest form of self-assertion, and a characteristic of manliness as distinguished from courage.

IV

The courage which is tested in times of terror, on the battle-field, in the sinking ship, the poisoned mine, the blazing house, presents but one small side of a great subject. Such testing times come to few, and to these not often in their lives. But on the other hand, the daily life of every one of us teems with occasions which will try the temper of our courage as searchingly, though not as terribly, as battle-field or fire or wreck. For we are born into a state of war; with falsehood and disease, and wrong and misery in a thousand forms lying all around us, and the voice within calling on us to take our stand as men in the eternal battle against these.

And in this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us single-handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth – the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher.

And this is the great lesson which we shall learn from Christ’s life, the more earnestly and faithfully we study it. “For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” To bear this witness against avowed and open enemies is comparatively easy; but, to bear it against those we love; against those whose judgment and opinions we respect, in defense or furtherance of that which approves itself as true to our own inmost conscience, this is the last and abiding test of courage and of manliness.

V

How natural, nay, how inevitable it is, that we should fall into the habit of appreciating and judging things mainly by the standards in common use amongst those we respect and love. But these very standards are apt to break down with us when we are brought face to face with some question which takes us ever so little out of ourselves and our usual moods. At such times we are driven to admit in our hearts that we, and those we respect and love, have been looking at and judging things, not truthfully, and therefore not courageously and manfully, but conventionally. And then comes one of the most searching of all trials of courage and manliness, when a man or woman is called to stand by what approves itself to their consciences as true, and to protest for it through evil report and good report, against all discouragement and opposition from those they love or respect. The sense of antagonism instead of rest, of distrust and alienation instead of approval and sympathy, which such times bring, is a test which tries the very heart and reins, and it is one which meets us at all ages, and in all conditions of life. Emerson’s hero is the man who, “taking both reputation and life in his hand, will with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob, by the resolute truth of his speech and rectitude of his behavior.”

VI

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickednesses in high places, or Russians, or border-ruffians.

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they don’t follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn’t be our world; and therefore I am dead against crying peace, when there is no peace, and isn’t meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folks fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them.

VII

You can’t alter society, or hinder people in general from being helpless and vulgar – from letting themselves fall into slavery to the things about them if they are rich, or from aping the habits and vices of the rich if they are poor. But you may live simple, manly lives yourselves, speaking your own thought, paying your own way, and doing your own work, whatever that may be. You will remain gentlemen so long as you follow these rules, if you have to sweep a crossing for your livelihood. You will not remain gentlemen in anything but the name, if you depart from them, though you may be set to govern a kingdom.

VIII

In testing manliness as distinguished from courage, we shall have to reckon sooner or later with the idea of duty. Nelson’s column stands in the most conspicuous site in all London, and stands there with all men’s approval, not because of his daring courage. Lord Peterborough, in a former generation, Lord Dundonald in the one which succeeded, were at least as eminent for reckless and successful daring. But it is because the idea of devotion to duty is inseparably connected with Nelson’s name in the minds of Englishmen, that he has been lifted high above all his compeers in England’s capital.

IX

In the throes of one of the terrible revolutions of the worst days of imperial Rome – when probably the cruelest mob and most licentious soldiery of all time were raging round the palace of the Cæsars, and the chances of an hour would decide whether Galba or Otho should rule the world, the alternative being a violent death – an officer of the guard, one Julius Atticus, rushed into Galba’s presence with a bloody sword, boasting that he had slain his rival, Otho. “My comrade, by whose order?” was his only greeting from the old Pagan chief. And the story has come down through eighteen centuries, in the terse, strong sentences of the great historian, Tacitus.

Comrade, who ordered thee? whose will art thou doing? It is the question which has to be asked of every fighting man, in whatever part of the great battlefield he comes to the front, and determines the manliness of soldier, statesman, parson, of every strong man, and suffering woman.

“Three roots bear up Dominion; knowledge, will,
These two are strong; but stronger still the third,
Obedience: ’tis the great tap-root, which still
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
Though storm and tempest spend their utmost skill.”

I think that the more thoroughly we sift and search out this question the more surely we shall come to this as the conclusion of the whole matter. Tenacity of will, or wilfulness, lies at the root of all courage, but courage can only rise into true manliness when the will is surrendered; and the more absolute the surrender of the will the more perfect will be the temper of our courage and the strength of our manliness.

“Strong Son of God, immortal Love,”

the laureate has pleaded, in the moment of his highest inspiration.

“Our wills are ours to make them thine.”

And that strong Son of God to whom this cry has gone up in our day, and in all days, has left us the secret of his strength in the words, “I am come to do the will of my Father and your Father.”

X

Haste and distrust are the sure signs of weakness, if not of cowardice. Just in so far as they prevail in any life, even in the most heroic, the man fails, and his work will have to be done over again. In Christ’s life there is not the slightest trace of such weakness or cowardice. From all that we are told, and from all that we can infer, he made no haste, and gave way to no doubt, waiting for God’s mind, and patiently preparing himself for whatever his work might be. And so his work from the first was perfect, and through his whole public life he never faltered or wavered, never had to withdraw or modify a word once spoken. And thus he stands, and will stand to the end of time, the true model of the courage and manliness of boyhood and youth and early manhood.

XI

The man whose yea is yea and his nay nay, is, we all confess, the most courageous, whether or no he may be the most successful in daily life. And he who gave the precept has left us the most perfect example of how to live up to it.

XII

It is his action when the danger comes, not when he is in solitary preparation for it, which marks the man of courage.

XIII

In all the world’s annals there is nothing which approaches, in the sublimity of its courage, that last conversation between our Saviour and the Roman procurator, before Pilate led him forth for the last time and pleaded scornfully with his nation for the life of their king. There must be no flaw or spot on Christ’s courage, any more than on his wisdom and tenderness and sympathy. And the more unflinchingly we apply the test the more clear and sure will the response come back to us.

XIV

Quit yourself like men; speak up, and strike out if necessary, for whatsoever is true and manly, and lovely, and of good report; never try to be popular, but only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and, wherever you are placed, you may leave the tone of feeling higher than you found it, and so be doing good which no living soul can measure to generations yet unborn.

XV

We listened to Dr. Arnold, as all boys in their better moods will listen (aye, and men too for the matter of that,) to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us by our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy the meaning of his life; that it was no fool’s or sluggard’s paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them, showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. The true sort of a captain, too, for a boys’ army, one who had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take hold of and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted courage which more than anything else won his way to the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them believe first in him, and then in his Master.

XVI

To stand by what our conscience witnesses for as truth, through evil and good report, even against all opposition of those we love, and of those whose judgment we look up to and should ordinarily prefer to follow; to cut ourselves deliberately off from their love and sympathy and respect, is surely one of the most severe trials to which we can be put. A man has need to feel at such times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him in some measure, as it was upon Christ when he rose in the synagogue of Nazareth and, selecting the passage of Isaiah which speaks most directly of the Messiah, claimed that title for himself, and told them that to-day this prophecy was fulfilled in him.

The fierce, hard, Jewish spirit is at once roused to fury. They would kill him then and there, and so settle his claims once for all. He passes through them, and away from the quiet home where he had been brought up – alone, it would seem, so far as man could make him so, and homeless for the remainder of his life. Yet not alone, for his Father is with him; nor homeless for he has the only home of which man can be sure, the home of his own heart shared with the Spirit of God.

XVII

We have been told recently, by more than one of those who profess to have weighed and measured Christianity and found it wanting, that religion must rest on reason, based on phenomena of this visible, tangible world in which we are living.

Be it so. There is no need for a Christian to object. We can meet this challenge as well as any other. We need never be careful about choosing our own battlefield. Looking, then, at that world as we see it, laboring heavily along in our own time – as we hear of it through the records of the ages – I must repeat that there is no phenomenon in it comparable for a moment to that of Christ’s life and work. The more we canvass and sift and weigh and balance the materials, the more clearly and grandly does his figure rise before us, as the true Head of humanity, the perfect Ideal, not only of wisdom and tenderness and love, but of courage also, because He was and is the simple Truth of God – the expression, at last, in flesh and blood of what He who created us means each one of our race to be.