The Decline of Reckless Courage

“Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.” — Psalm xxv. 3.

THERE is nothing which men are by nature so proud of as reckless courage — transgressing without. cause. They are not proud of having transgressed through ignorance. They are not proud of having transgressed through false conviction. But they are apt to be proud of a wrong deed whose simple motive was personal fearlessness; it seems to make them heroes. The Psalmist, on the contrary, says it is a thing to be ashamed of; he will admit nothing heroic in a deed of reckless courage. And, indeed, I think he is right. For there are two kinds of courage in this world — the courage of the flesh and the courage of the spirit. The one is something which we share with the beast of the field, and in which the beast of the field excels us; the other is all our own. I remember reading lately of two little girls discussing the depth of a pond. One had the courage of the flesh and was eager to display it; she proposed they should both jump in and try. Her sister drew back; she was timid in the flesh. The bolder of the two leapt into the water and did not come up; she had been caught in a bank of weeds. Then the one timid in the flesh became brave in the spirit; without a moment’s hesitation she sprang into the dreaded water and rescued her sister. Which of these had most animal courage? The one who endangered her life without cause. The other never reached the absence of fear — not even when she saved her sister. Yet hers was a nobler courage, less in quantity, higher in kind. She never lost the timidity of the flesh; but she was carried through that timidity by a motive of love.

O Lord Jesus Christ, dispel my false ideal of glory! Dispel my thought that to say ‘’ I do not care” is a manly thing! Teach me that the glory of man is not fearlessness, but fear! The higher I climb in creation, the more does my flesh lose courage. The lion is bolder than the child; the child is bolder than the youth; the youth is bolder than the man. I have more fear as I come nearer to Thee. Men before Thy coming did not fear death as they fear it now. Thou hast made life so responsible that death is to me more appalling; I could not bear it now without the vision of a debt discharged. It is easy for a man to die who thinks himself a worm — who deems his brothers worms; such a life to such a brotherhood can have nothing to pay. But I have learned from Thee the magnitude of life, the awfulness of life. I have learned from Thee the weight of an idle word, the sweep of a single sin. I have learned it, and it makes me laden. I have lost the courage of the beast of the field; it has dropped from me like Elijah’s mantle as I have ascended. There has come to me a great fear — Thy fear — the fear of the Lord. I thank Thee, O Christ, for this new, this solemn gift.