“I will try and explain myself then. Moral courage, as I understand it, is shown when a person has the bravery and strength of character to act from principle, when doing so may subject him, and he knows it, to misunderstanding, misrepresentation, opposition, ridicule, or persecution.”
The squire was silent for a moment, and fidgeted on his chair. Amos coloured and cast down his eyes; while his brother looked up at his aunt with an expression on his face of mingled annoyance and defiance. Then Mr Huntingdon asked, “Well, but what’s to hinder a person having both what I should call old-fashioned courage and your moral courage at the same time?”
“Nothing to hinder it, necessarily,” replied Miss Huntingdon. “Very commonly, however, they do not go together; or perhaps I ought rather to say, that while persons who have moral courage often have natural courage too, a great many persons who have natural courage have no moral courage.”
“You mean, aunt, I suppose,” said her nephew Walter, rather sarcastically, “that the one’s all ‘dash’ and the other all ‘duty.’”
“Something of the kind, Walter,” replied his aunt. “The one acts upon a sudden impulse, or on the spur of the moment, or from natural spirit; the other acts steadily, and from deliberate conviction.”
“Can you give us an example, aunt?” asked the boy, but now with more of respect and less of irritation in his manner.
“Yes, I can,” she replied; “and I will do so if you like, and my example shall be that of one who combined both natural and moral courage. My moral hero is Christopher Columbus.”
“A regular brick of a man, I allow; but, dear aunt, pray go on.”
“Well, then, I have always had a special admiration for Columbus because of his noble and unwavering moral courage. Just think of what he had to contend with. It was enough to daunt the stoutest heart and wear out the most enduring patience. Convinced that somewhere across the ocean to the west there must be a new and undiscovered world, and that it would be the most glorious of enterprises to find that new world and plant the standard of the Cross among its people, he never wavered in his one all-absorbing purpose of voyaging to those unknown shores and winning them for Christ. And yet, from the very first, he met with every possible discouragement, and had obstacle upon obstacle piled up in his path. He was laughed to scorn as a half-mad enthusiast; denounced as a blasphemer and gainsayer of Scripture truth; cried down as an ignoramus, unworthy of the slightest attention from men of science; tantalised by half promises; wearied by vexatious delays: and yet never did his courage fail nor his purpose waver. At last, after years of hope deferred and anxieties which made him grey while still in the prime of life, he was permitted to set sail on what was generally believed to be a desperate crusade, with no probable issue but death. And just picture him to yourself, Walter, as he set out on that voyage amidst the sullen murmurs and tears of the people. His ships were three ‘caravels,’ as they were called,—that is, something the same as our coasting colliers, or barges,—and there was no deck in two of them. Besides, they were crazy, leaky, and scarcely seaworthy; and the crews numbered only one hundred and twenty men, most of them pressed, and all hating the service. Nevertheless, he ventured with these into an ocean without any known shore; and on he went with one fixed, unalterable purpose, and that was to sail westward, westward, westward till he came to land. Days and weeks went by, but no land was seen. Provisions ran short, and every day’s course made return home more hopeless. But still his mind never changed; still he plunged on across that trackless waste of waters. The men mutinied—and one can hardly blame them; but he subdued them by his force of character,—they saw in his eye that which told them that their leader was no common man, but one who would die rather than abandon his marvellous enterprise. And you remember the end? The very day after the mutiny, a branch of thorn with berries on it floats by them. They are all excitement. Then a small board appears; then a rudely-carved stick; then at night Columbus sees a light, and next day lands on the shores of his new world, after a voyage of more than two months over seas hitherto unexplored by man, and in vessels which nothing but a special providence could have kept from foundering in the mighty waters. The man who could carry out such a purpose in the teeth of such overwhelming opposition, discouragement, and difficulty, may well claim our admiration for courage of the highest and noblest order.”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Mr Huntingdon said, “Well, Kate, Columbus was a brave man, no doubt, and deserves the best you can say of him; and I think I see what you mean, from his case, about the greatness and superiority of moral courage.”