Now we begin to get just a glimpse, at least, of a nobler and rarer type of heroism than that of the soldier, when we look upon the man who, in obedience to some inner impulse of the soul, deliberately alienates himself from the sympathy and the applause of his fellows. Such a man must be regarded as a kind of pioneer or explorer, who goes into the solitudes not of the physical but of the spiritual realm, there to blaze new trails, and, perhaps like Captain Scott, to die alone. A striking example of heroism of this kind, presented in exact antithesis to the ordinary heroism of the soldier, may be found in John Galsworthy's play, The Mob. At first accepted only as a brilliant piece of imagination, the drama becomes charged with real significance when we learn that its action is a more or less exact reproduction of the situation which was precipitated in England during the Boer War by Lloyd-George and his famous "Stop-the-War party." The story of the play, and to a large extent of English history in 1899, is that of a Cabinet Minister, Stephen More by name, who opposes from his seat in the House of Commons a war threatened by England against a weaker nation, and continues his opposition after the war has been declared and an English army has been slaughtered. Resigning his office, he stumps the country in a campaign for peace, alienates his wife, who is outraged by his attitude, faces persistently the attacks of angry mobs, and at last is murdered and thus made a martyr to his cause. The spiritual, if not the dramatic, climax of the play comes in the second scene of the last act, where Stephen More, in answer to his wife and his father-in-law, who are appealing to him for the last time to abandon his mad purpose, contrasts his deeds with those of the soldiers at the front. "Our men," answers More, "are dying out there for the faith that's in them. I believe my faith the higher, the better for mankind. Am I now to shrink away? (Mine's) a forlorn hope—not to help let die a fire—a fire that's sacred—not only now in this country, but in all countries for all time." And in this spirit, with the execrations of his family and of an entire people on his head, he goes alone to a cruel death.
What we see in this drama of Mr. Galsworthy is only what we see again and again after all in the infinitely greater drama of humanity. The noblest testimony to the quality of men's souls that we have anywhere, is that which has been given to us by the "noble company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs," who, refusing to take the easy road of popularity, have deliberately chosen the thorny path of insult, ignominy, destruction, for the faith that glowed within their souls. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Socrates, St. Paul, Wycliff, Huss, Savanarola, Martin Luther, John Knox, George Fox, John Wesley, Joseph Priestly, Theodore Parker—how the names multiply, all as sweet as honey to our lips, of those who refused to barter their souls even for the good will of men. And first among them all, of course, is Jesus, the Nazarene. The noblest thing that was ever said of the Carpenter-Prophet was this—that "he made himself of no reputation." The noblest and also the most pathetic thing that He ever said of Himself was this—that "the birds have nests and the foxes holes, but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head." The noblest thing He ever did was this—to walk from the house of Pilate to the crest of Calvary, with the cross upon His back and the railing mob behind Him and before, and never once to falter and complain. Hated and hooted by the multitudes who at one time followed Him gladly, deserted even by the twelve who had pledged to Him their lives, misunderstood, despised, condemned, spat upon—a stranger even to His mother and His brethren—what a fate was this! And what consummate heroism was needed to meet it unafraid! In the face of such a supreme spectacle of sacrifice as this, how foolish, how unjust to identify the hero, to any degree of exclusiveness with the soldier. The soldier is a hero, without doubt, but greater than he is the hero who bears not arms but a cross, wears not a crown of laurel but a crown of thorns, and dies not on the field of battle but on "the field of the skull." "He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; one from whom men hid their faces; * * * he was oppressed, stricken, smitten of God * * * yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth"—of whom such things as this may be truly said, He is the noblest hero of them all. James Russell Lowell has set forth this abiding truth in his Present Crisis:
"Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes—they were souls who stood alone,
While the men they agonized for, hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline,
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design."
Such are the types of heroism which I have thought it well to bring to your attention this afternoon. Accepting the soldier as the traditional and not unworthy standard of all heroic types, I have nevertheless tried to show that there are other men who meet all the hazards of suffering and death which he encounters, and yet are denied the aids and comforts which are his. I have contrasted the utter commonplaces of the obscure heroisms of daily life with the pomp and pageantry of martial life. I have contrasted the awful solitude of the men who made new paths and faced unfamiliar perils on prairie, desert and arctic sea, with the cheerful comradeship which hallows the experience of the soldier. And I have contrasted the popular acclaim which is the very breath of the warrior's nostrils with the popular odium and hatred which kill the prophets of the new and better day. Thus have I moved from what I believe to be, from its very nature, the lowest, or "rudest," grade of heroism, to those which I believe to be the higher and finer grades. And it must have long since become evident to you, that every step that I have taken in the progress of my argument has been away from what we may well call the more physical expression of heroic endeavor, to those which are more moral, or spiritual. That the true soldier is possessed of something more than mere brute courage, I would be among the very last, I trust, to deny. But however fine and pure may be the valor of his soul, it still must be admitted, in the last analysis, that the soldier never rids himself of the material accessories and trappings of the world. The flag that greets his eye and the music that beats upon his ear, the personal contact of his fellows upon the march and in the trenches, the medals and monuments that embody a nation's applause and gratitude—all these things, with however high an admixture of spiritual elements, are still fundamentally "of the earth, earthy." And so essential are they to the soldier's life, that we cannot think of that life without them. But how different is the situation when we turn to these other types of heroism of which I have made mention! How do the earthly foundations seem to disappear, and those foundations which are only spiritual take their place! These unknown heroes, whose names and deeds are recorded on the tablets in the Postman's Park—what stirred them to action save the spontaneous promptings of their own hearts? Those "brave settlers," and "brave women" who "cleared fields" and "made homes" in solitary places—Captain Scott who faced death all alone in terrifying storms of the Antarctic—what sustained them but the secret counsel of their inward spirits? And Jesus of Nazareth as he hung upon the cross—upon what did he rely, if not upon God and his own soul? The heroism of the soldier, even at its best, is more or less a fleshy, worldly thing. The heroism of these others is more and more a spiritual unworldly thing, until, at the topmost grade of all, we meet the prophet, the saint, the martyr, who matches his naked soul against the world, and gladly loses the one that he may save the other.
It is when we attain to this viewpoint, that we begin to understand the mistake of ordinary opinion in identifying the hero with the soldier. Especially in this age of waxing militarism, it is well for us to note the fallacy which is involved in this primeval superstition. Heroism, at its truest and best, is spiritual. It is "an obedience," says Emerson, "to a secret impulse of an individual's character." It needs no other stimulus, hides in no gorgeous trappings, craves no companionship in suffering, accepts no rewards of merit or applause. Contemptuous of "external good," it seeks its own counsel and obeys the mandates of its own spirit. Heroism of this kind flourishes in times of war as in all times of terror. But so essentially brutal, hideous, cruel is every circumstance of war, that even the noblest heroism is degraded and defiled by it. It is only when the arms of the flesh are broken and cast aside, and the soul stands naked before its Maker, that heroism becomes transcendant in obscurity, loneliness, persecution; when all things that the world can give have failed and dropped away it reveals itself, like a star at midnight, shining to the glory of Almighty God. Emerson has summed it all up, in his introductory lines to his essay on Heroism—
"Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons,
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread
Lightning-knotted round his head;
The hero is not fed on sweets
Daily his own soul he eats."
CHRISTIAN LIFE
by
Elbert Russell
THE QUAKER OF THE FUTURE TIME
by
George A. Walton
THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT
by
Norman H. Thomas