Religious Life

Southland Times, Issue 24484, 11 July 1941, Page 7

Religious Life

By

ICHTHUS

Private Courage Today in an idle monlent I pickedl up a novel which a neighbour had over for Margaret to read. Whe ” . opened it the dedication caught my y - “This book,” I read, “treats of private valour” . . . “Private valour, I thougnt to myself, “that is a fine expression for a fine thing.” And then I thought how | frequently one meets with P rl^ a J® valour” in these days. I dipped here and there in the book and gathered enough of it to see that the dedicati was apt and just. The story unfolded the life of a young woman left alone to face the world with nothing but her valour of spirit. How she did this, successfully meeting and mastering every difficulty and every blow as it came, making a real place for herself in the world, retaining her sweetness ol spirit and growing constantly in wisdom, strength, and courage, till, all unconsciously, she came to be a sort of central pillar in the lives of all with whom she had to do—that is the story. From every page I gathered a deepening impression of “private valour.” The book closes on a climax. One of the characters says to another: “She’ll see it through. You can depend on that. Hannah is at her very best when there’s a demand for—-tor private courage . . .” And so I had my subject for this week. Today I want to treat of “private courage.” A NOBLE QUALITY It was that word “private” that first attracted me. “Private” courage. I liked that. Not that I have any desire to belittle or deprecate public courage. Who could wish to do that in view of the epic deeds the whole world is .witnessing every passing day. Of public courage Winston Churchill is the incarnation, as are our aviators, our sailors, and soldiers. I suppose that by public courage we mean courage that is displayed m great public events with the world looking on. Also, one supposes that behind it —or it would not be there —is this private valour of which we are thinking today. It is not, however, of public courage that my author treats. He is not thinking of great events, wrought out in fierce limelight, with the eyes of the whole world looking on. He depicts the same high quality of purest valour in quite another sphere, that of the humble, obscure ordinary life. Most of us are very small, and obscure, and humble people. Our battlefields, for the most part, have no spectators but the eyes of the angels. R. L. otevenson once wrote of his battlefield being the dingy, inglorious one of the sick-bed and the medicine bottle. That may be our battlefield, or it may be something else equally private and obscure. How do we take bad news? How do we bear the blows of circumstance? Do we carry on with our daily round against great odds? I saw a woman gaily smiling the other day when all the time I knew that her heart was wrung with anguish and the bottom had fallen out of her life. That is private valour. There is always a constant demand for it. Surely it is the basis of all courage. To face the blows and sorrows, the difficulties and anxieties of an obscure life bravely, with a growing sweetness of spirit, retaining patience, and peace, and a quiet, hopeful heart not absorbed in itself that is “private courage.” To be at your very best when there is a demand for private courage is very near to the apex of the human spirit. i A HEARTENING FACT

On a dark night of storm one sometimes sees through the torn clouds a radiant star. There are storm clouds and darkness enough in the skies today. But through it all gleams a radiant star. Never, I think, in the whole history of the world was there so much private courage. The spirit in which millions of nameless British people have taken the destruction of their homes, the burning of their cities with their priceless historical buildings, the loss of loved ones, and, after nights of inexpressible horror, have next day—and day after day, month after month—just carried on with the daily routine as usual, that is nothing less than an epic of private courage. We have had of iate years so many books, like Spengler’s “Decline of the West,” showing how- out-worn and effete our civilization is; we have heard so much about “our decadence” —that it is indeed a very heartening thing that perhaps the most outstanding fact of the greatest and most appalling war in history has been this revelation of private valour and private courage. Not only are our youth as courageous and skilful and daring as ever they were in the past—but the quality of the masses of private, obscure, non-combatant people has shone with a splendour and a glory never surpassed. There may be —indeed, there are—features of our life to be deplored; but who today can talk of “decline” and “decadence,” or doubt that beneath it all the quality is fine and sound? Amid all the wonders of the world the glory of the human spirit at its best shines out radiant and supreme. THE SECRET In this book that treats of private valour, by the way, Hannah had a secret born of her deep and wide experience of life. She was not what is ordinarily called a pious person. But she was quite certain that if we do our best, and are our very best, “He, or They, or It, outside of us,” is on our side, and looks after us, and all will come out right. Somehow, lam certain that that faith is absolutely sound. She did not know it, but what she had found in her own humble way was just exactly what the Apostle Paul too had found. He put it in words that have become a classic of the Christian faith: “I can do all things through Christ Who makes me strong.” It was that certainty of being guided and sustained that enabled her “to be at her very best when there is a demand for private courage.”