{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24069/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24069","id":"gutenberg_24069","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24069","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Heroes"],"text":"E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Jacqueline Jeremy, Ian Deane, and the\nProject Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n(http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nThe William Penn Lectures\n\nHEROES IN PEACE\n\n[Illustration: John Haynes Holmes' signature.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1920\nWalter H. Jenkins, Printer\nPhiladelphia\n\n\n\n\nThis is the sixth of the series of lectures known as the WILLIAM PENN\nLECTURES. They are supported by the Young Friends' Movement of\nPhiladelphia Yearly Meeting, which was organized on Fifth month 13th,\n1916, at Race Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, for the purpose of\ncloser fellowship, for the strengthening of such association and the\ninterchange of experience, of loyalty to the ideals of the Society of\nFriends, and for the preparation by such common ideals for more\neffective work through the Society of Friends for the growth of the\nKingdom of God on earth.\n\nThe name of William Penn has been chosen because he was a Great\nAdventurer, who in fellowship with his friends started in his youth on\nthe holy experiment of endeavoring \"to live out the laws of Christ in\nevery thought and word and deed,\" that these might become the laws and\nhabits of the State.\n\nJohn Haynes Holmes, of the Community Church, New York City, delivered\nthis sixth lecture on \"Heroes in Peace,\" at Race Street Meeting House,\non Fifth month 9th, 1920.\n\nPhiladelphia, 1920.\n\n\n\n\nHeroes in Peace\n\n\nIn an essay published some years ago on Thomas Carlyle's famous book,\n_Heroes and Hero Worship_, Prof. MacMechan, a well-known student of\nliterature in England, makes the following observation: \"In 1840, 'hero'\nmeant, most probably, to nine Englishmen out of every ten, a general\nofficer who had served in the Peninsula, or taken part in the last great\nfight with Napoleon, and who dined year after year with the Duke at\nApsley House on the anniversary of Waterloo. To most people 'hero' means\nsimply 'soldier,' and implies a human soul greatly daring and greatly\nenduring.\"\n\nWhat Prof. MacMechan here tells us about the Englishman of 1840 is\nequally true of the Englishman of today--is true, indeed, of all\npeoples in all ages of history. Heroism has nearly always been taken to\nimply physical courage; physical courage has always found its most\nterrible and dramatic expression in warfare; and, therefore, by a\nnatural association of ideas, the hero has come to be identified with\nthe soldier. When we think of heroes, we almost instinctively find\nourselves thinking of armored champions of Greece and Rome, who were\nhelped to immortality by Plutarch, whom Emerson calls \"the doctor and\nhistorian of heroism\"; of King Arthur, and his knights of the Round\nTable; of Harold and his men of iron on the field of Hastings; of the\nCrusaders, who marched to the East with the sword in the one hand and\nthe crucifix in the other, to wrest the holy city from the profaning\nclutch of the hated Moslem. Or, coming down to the more modern times,\nif we speak of heroism to the Frenchman, he thinks of the first Emperor\nand the old guard which \"dies but never surrenders\"; to the Italian, he\nhails the names of Garibaldi and the Thousand; to the Englishman, he\nacclaims the \"thin red line of heroes\" who held the field of Waterloo,\nconquered India and Egypt, and recently defended the Empire from the\nonslaughts of the Germans. And the same thing holds true of the\nAmerican! To you and to me, the word \"hero\" means George Washington and\nthe ragged Continentals who starved and froze amid the snowdrifts of\nValley Forge; Commodore Perry and the sailors who shattered the British\nfleet upon the waters of Lake Erie; General Grant and the boys in blue\nwho fought and conquered General Lee and the equally heroic boys in\ngray. The national heroes of all countries are soldiers. Walk the\nstreets of any city in any land, and everywhere you will see statues of\nmilitary chieftains, as though these were the only heroes the world had\never produced who were worthy of commemorative monuments. \"To most\npeople,\" as Prof. MacMechan has well said, \"'hero' means simply\nsoldier\"; or, if we be enlightened enough now and then to extend this\ntitle to men who have achieved fame in other walks of life, it is\nbecause we see in them some analogy to the warrior. \"It is to the\nmilitary attitude of the soul,\" says Emerson, \"that we give the name of\nheroism.\"\n\nNow that the universal instinct of humanity to identify the hero and the\nsoldier is sound and wholesome, to a large extent, we must all agree. I\nwould be among the last, I trust, to deny to the soldier the possession\nof those heroic qualities which are so manifestly his. I must confess\nthat I have both admiration and love for the men who march away to\ntrench and battlefield, there to fling away their lives as little things\nfor the sake of some great cause which they hold to be supremely dear.\n\"Every heroic act,\" says Emerson again, in his essay on Heroism,\n\"measures itself by its contempt of some external good\"; and what man, I\nask you, has more contempt for certain external goods, and therefore\nmore heroism, than the loyal soldier? Material comfort, physical\nsecurity, the familiar sights and sounds of home, the love of friends\nand kindred, the laughter of little children, the dreams of quiet old\nage, the precious boon of life--these are some of the more elementary\nthings which a man shows to us that he holds in contempt, as compared\nwith the happiness and safety of his native land, when he voluntarily\nenlists for active service. There are some soldiers, of course, who are\nmere adventurers. There are some others to whom war is nothing more nor\nless than a trade. There are still others who see in war only an\nopportunity for the release of the brutish passions which are\ninconsistent with the ordered ways of peace. But even these men bear a\ncertain aspect of heroism. \"I naturally love a soldier,\" says Sir Thomas\nBrowne, in his _Religio Medica_, \"and honor those tattered and\ncontemptible regiments that will die at the command of a sergeant.\" And\nwhen we come to the ordinary man who goes to the front in time of war,\nsuch as the farmer described by John Masefield in his elegy, August,\n1914, who looks with fond eyes upon his furrowed fields, his barns, his\nhay-ricks, his \"friendly horses\"--\n\n    \"The rooks, the tilted stacks, the beasts in pen * * *\n    The fields of home, the byres, the market towns\"\n\nand then, with weary heart, leaves all these things behind to perish in\n\"the misery of the soaking trench,\" we find the sublimity of sacrifice.\nThe true soldier is indeed a hero. In this age, of all ages of human\nhistory, are we unable to give denial to this fact. Millions of men, on\na dozen different battle-fronts, have recently taught us the heroisms\nwhich make war almost as glorious as it is hideous. Not a day passed\nduring more than four terrible years, but what we read with tingling\nhearts how brave men suffered without complaint, and died without fear,\nfor the countries that they loved. I remember, for example, reading on\na certain day in 1916, in a single copy of an evening newspaper, of\nthree young soldiers who were heroes. One was a German lad, unnamed, who\nwas found stricken unto death by the side of a dead Englishman, whose\nwounds he had tried to staunch, and whose thirst he had quenched from\nthe water of his own canteen--a second Sir Philip Sidney, nobler than\nthe first, since he gave succor not to a friend but to an enemy. The\nsecond man was an Englishman, Capt. Alexander Seaton, who fell fighting\nbravely at the Dardanelles. A classical scholar of repute, a fellow in\nPembroke College, Cambridge, devoted to his work as a tutor and lecturer\nin history, it was written of him, by one who knew and loved him, \"Not a\nsoldier by inclination, he left his peaceful life at Pembroke solely\nbecause he conceived that his duty lay that way, and that the hour had\ncome for every man to strike a blow for his country.\" The third man was\na Frenchman, a poet, Ernest Psichari by name, who fell at Verton, in\nBelgium. \"His battery had been ordered to keep the enemy in check while\nthe army was falling back,\" ran the story. \"They were expected to hold\ntheir ground for a few hours, and they did so for a whole day; and when\nthe last shell had been spent, officers and gunners were killed to a man\non the guns they had taken care to render unusable.\"\n\nSuch are the stories which came to us through the period of the Great\nWar. All of them are eloquent of the fact, are they not, that the\ninstinct of humanity is right in its ascription of heroism to the\nsoldier? If this instinct has gone astray, it is only in the tendency\nwhich it has shown to ascribe heroism exclusively to the soldier. In\nattempting to do full justice to the man who has fought and died amid\nthe terrors of the battlefield, it has been tempted again and again to\ndo something less than justice to the man who has fought and died as\ngallantly in fields less dramatic but no less terrible than those of\nwar. For whether we judge heroism as involving contempt of comfort,\nhazard of death, or the simple eager quest for fullness of life, we find\nit, I believe, even more truly, though less frequently, characteristic\nof the circumstances of peace than those of war. It was upon this plain\nfact that William James sought to vindicate the possibility of what he\ncalled, in his famous essay of that title, \"a moral equivalent of war.\"\nHe affirmed that \"the war party is assuredly right in affirming and\nreaffirming that the martial virtues are absolute and permanent human\ngoods.\" But, he continues, \"patriotic pride and ambition in their\nmilitary form are, after all, only specifications of a more general\ncompetitive passion. They are its first form, but that is no reason for\nsupposing them to be its last form\"; nor, we may add, its only present\nform. \"It would be simply preposterous,\" says James again, \"if the only\nforce that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into\nEnglish or American natures should be the fear of being killed by the\nGermans or Japanese. Great indeed is fear, but it is not, as our\nmilitary enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only\nstimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual\nenergy. Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound everywhere. Priests\nand medical men are in a fashion educated to it. The only thing needed\nhenceforward is to inflame the civic temper as past history has\ninflamed the military temper.\" And it is here that James urges, as his\n\"moral equivalent of war,\" the conscription of our young men \"to coal\nand iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to\ndish-washing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and\ntunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, to the frames of\nsky-scrapers,\" there to pay \"their blood-tax--in the immemorial human\nwarfare against nature.\" All of which means, among other things, that\nthose men and women today who are already mining coal, and washing\ndishes, and making tunnels, and stoking furnaces, and building\nsky-scrapers, are already heroes, trained like the soldier to \"the\nmilitary ideals of hardihood and discipline!\"\n\nThere is a heroism of peace comparable in every way to the heroism of\nwar. Nay, we would go further and say that there is a heroism of peace\nsuperior in many ways to the heroism of war. The true soldier, as we\nhave seen, is necessarily a hero; but the true hero is by no means\nnecessarily a soldier. On the contrary, there have been thousands of men\nwho have ascended to heights of heroic endeavor and achievement, to\nwhich the soldier from the very nature of his profession has never been\nable to attain. Emerson declares in his great essay that the heroism of\nwar is heroism in \"its rudest form.\" May we not also say, perhaps, that\nheroism of war is heroism in its easiest and therefore least\nextraordinary form? For there are certain circumstances surrounding the\nconduct of campaigns and the fighting of battles, which make heroism as\nsimple and natural as, under other circumstances, it is difficult and\nunnatural. I am even tempted to go so far as to assert that a man can be\na hero in war and still be a coward at heart. He can at least meet the\ntest of heroism amid the fury of armed combat, with some degree of\nsuccess, when he would crumple up before this test, like a rotten lance\nagainst a shield, under every other condition. Indeed, we have only to\nstrip away the trappings, the artificial characteristics of militarism,\nin order to see how the heroism produced by war, even at its highest and\nbest, is of an inferior type, as compared with the purer and nobler type\nof heroism produced by the ordinary and therefore more moral experience\nof peace. From this point of view, it seems to me that there are at\nleast three circumstances, altogether peculiar to warfare, which make\nthe heroism of the soldier to be easy, and therefore of a type\ndistinctly lower than that manifested by men in other, more commonplace,\nless dramatic, but no less terrific crises of experience.\n\nIn the first place, let me point out that there is a pageantry about\nwar, which makes even the meanest heart to beat with a deeper throb and\nthus feel a loftier courage than is its wont. There are the uniforms in\nwhich the soldiers are clad, the gleaming swords and rifles which they\ncarry, the brilliant flags which flutter over their heads, the crashing\nmusic which marks the time for their marching feet. Everywhere, in camp,\non the march, on the battlefield, there is color, glitter, glory, beauty\nof sight and sound, the whole paraphernalia of \"pomp and circumstance.\"\nAnd all this has the inevitable effect of making it easy for the\nordinary man to forget his fears and throw himself like a hero into the\nstress and strain of combat. Even those who hate war the worst and are\ntherefore subject the least to its artificial glamor are swept away in\nspite of themselves. Richard Le Gallienne has written of this very\nexperience in his famous poem, The Illusion of War. He starts out by\nconfessing that he abhors war. \"And yet,\" he says, \"How sweet\n\n    \"The sound along, the marching street\n        of drum and fife\" * * *\n\nAnd he continues--\n\n    \"* * * even my peace-abiding feet\n    Go marching with the marching street,\n    For yonder, yonder, goes the fife,\n    And what care I for human life!\n    The tears fill my astonished eyes\n    And my full heart is like to break.\"\n\nAnd then, recovering himself again, he points out how wicked it is to\nclothe such a monstrous thing as war in pageantry:\n\n    \"* * * like a queen\n    That in a garden of glory walks\";\n\nand brings against art the charge of \"infamy\" for hiding in music this\n\"hideous grinning thing,\"\n\n    \"Till good men love the thing they loathe.\"\n\nNow if all this tinsel glory of war has this effect on the mind of such\na pacifist as Mr. Le Gallienne, what shall we say to its effect on the\nminds of men who have no particular convictions upon the subject? The\nfact of the matter is, there is no accident about all the artificial\nsplendor which has been thrown about the conditions of warfare from time\nimmemorial. The flags, the uniforms, the marching, the \"heady music,\"\nhave all attached themselves to war for the good and sufficient\npsychological reason that they exercise a transforming influence upon\nthe human heart. Napoleon understood this when he issued his famous\nbulletins to his soldiers before going into battle. General Hancock\nunderstood this at Gettysburg when, in the fateful moments just\npreceding Pickett's charge, he rode along the crest of Cemetery Ridge\nclad in his dress uniform and mounted on a white horse with golden\ntrappings. The Germans understood this when they sent their men into the\nconflict with the music of military bands and with the choral chants of\nLuther on their lips. Every humblest subaltern officer in any army\nunderstands this when he places the flag at the head of the moving\nregiment. Such appeals to the senses change men on the instant--make the\nbest of them into saints and the worst of them into momentary heroes.\nThey become stimulated as by some strange intoxicant, transformed as by\nsome mystic conversion of the soul. They forget the horrors of the\nstruggle, the peril of disaster, the chances of life and death. They are\nconscious only of glory and delight. Their eyes gleam, their hearts\nthrob, the earth changes to beauty, the heavens break into song. And\nstraightway deeds of valor become easy, heroism commonplace, and\nsacrifice the order of the day.\n\n    \"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife,\n      To all the sensual world proclaim,\n    One crowded hour of glorious life\n      Is worth an age without a name.\"\n\nNow heroism, which is performed under circumstances such as these, is\nheroism still. But I want to lay down the principle that such heroism is\nof a type inferior to that performed under the drab, uninspiring,\nfamiliar circumstances of daily life. The soldier who goes marching into\nbattle with the flag before his eyes and wild music in his ears, is a\nbrave man--but the sailor who leaps into the foaming sea, the miner who\ndescends into the flaming pit, the locomotive engineer who dies at his\npost of duty, without so much as a single human voice, perhaps, to give\nhim cheer, is a braver man. I always recall in this connection, as a\ntype and symbol of what we may term the heroism of common life, a story\nwhich I read some years ago in the newspapers. It concerned two\nlaborers, William Phelps and James Stansbury, who were one day cleaning\nout the inside of a large boiler at the Cerealine mills in Indianapolis.\nBy the error of another workman, live steam was turned into the boiler\nbefore the cleaners had left it. Instantly, by a common impulse, the two\nmen jumped for the single ladder which led to safety. Phelps got there\nfirst, but no sooner had his foot touched the rounds than he stepped\naside, seized his companion and boosted him up. \"You first, Jim,\" was\nhis gasping cry, \"you first.\" Pushed and thrust by his friend, Stansbury\nescaped, but Phelps was rescued only to die two hours later in dreadful\nagony. And when told, just before he died, that Jim was all right, he\nsaid, \"That's good--nobody'll miss me, but Jim had the wife and the\nkids.\" It was a wise reporter who put the story on the wire, for he\nclosed it with the words, \"No soldier in the siege of Pekin or the\nbattle of Santiago ever proved himself a greater hero.\"\n\nStories of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but I can sum up\nall that I would say upon this point by describing a strange little\nbuilding which I chanced to discover in an out-of-the-way corner of\nLondon some years ago. For many weeks I had been looking upon cathedrals\nand public buildings and city squares, where monuments to soldiers were\nas common as daisies in a summer field. Suddenly, on a certain morning,\nI came upon a little plot of grass and trees, near the great postoffice\nin St. Botolph's, Aldergate, which is called the \"Postman's Park,\" and\nat one end of it saw the little open gallery, erected in 1887 by the\ngreat painter, George F. Watts, with its forty-eight tablets placed in\ncommemoration of certain heroes and heroines who died unknown in the\nendeavor to save the lives of others. Here was name after name which\nmeant nothing, but story after story which meant everything. Tablet 1\nwas in memory of Tom Griffin, aged 21, a steamfitter, who on April 12,\n1899, was scalded to death while trying to save his \"mate\" from an\nexploded boiler; Tablet 3, in memory of Mary Rogers, stewardess of the\nsteamship Stella, who on March 30, 1899, went down with her ship after\nembarking into life boats all the women passengers committed to her\ncare; Tablet 5, in memory of Elizabeth Boxall, aged 17, who on January\n20, 1888, died from injuries received in trying to rescue a little child\nfrom being run over; Tablet 8, in memory of Dr. Samuel Rabbath, officer\nof the Royal Free Hospital, who died on October 20, 1884, from\ndiphtheria contracted by sucking through a glass tube into his mouth the\ninfected membrane from the throat of a strangling child; Tablet 10, in\nmemory of William Goodrum, aged 60, a railway flagman, who on February\n28, 1880, stepped in front of a flying train to rescue a fellow-laborer,\nand was instantly killed; Tablet 16, in memory of Ella Donovan, a woman\nof the slums, who on July 28, 1873, entered a burning tenement to rescue\nlittle children, not her own; Tablet 23, in memory of Henry Bristow, a\nboy of 8, who on January 5, 1891, died from injuries received in trying\nto save his little sister, aged 3, from being burned to death. And so\nthe tablets tell their pathetic tales! You read one after another until\nyour eyes are dimmed with tears and you can read no more. And then you\nseat yourself for a moment in the quiet park, with all London roaring in\nyour ears, and you think of these humble men and obscure women who,\nwithout the blare of any music or the flashing colors of any flag or the\nthrilling excitement of charge and countercharge, \"laid down their lives\nfor their friends.\" \"Is my face cut?\" said William Peart, a locomotive\ndriver commemorated on Tablet 2, as he was pulled from out the wreckage\nof his exploded engine. He was told that it was. \"Never mind,\" he\nreplied, with his last breath, \"I stopped the train.\" Here is heroism of\na new type--dull, commonplace, everyday, without one trace of color or\nromance. But for this very reason do I believe it to be heroism of a\nhigher type than that of the soldier.\n\nBut there is a second circumstance peculiar to the life of the soldier,\nwhich makes martial heroism to be of an easier and therefore inferior\ntype. I refer to the fact that the soldier performs his deeds of valor\nnot only under the stimulus of \"pomp and circumstance,\" but also under\nthe sweet influences of companionship. The soldier is always one of a\ncompany or regiment. Except on occasional scout or sentry duty, he is\nalways moving with the collective motion of a great host of his\nfellowmen. He is never working, fighting, suffering alone, and is\ntherefore never left to the heart-breaking task of bearing his burden in\nsolitude. On the contrary, as he walks, he keeps step with thousands of\nmarching feet; as he advances into battle, he rubs shoulders with his\n\"mates\"; as he falls headlong in the trenches, he is picked up and\nministered to by the hands of those he loves. And out of this solace of\ncompanionship, out of this inspiration of collective life, there comes\ncreeping into his heart a sense of uplift, a contagion of spirit, which\nmakes heroism inevitable. I have never seen this aspect of military\nexperience more wonderfully expressed than by Prof. Perry, of Harvard,\nin an article in the New Republic, in which he describes his impressions\nas a Plattsburgh \"rookie.\" \"Soldierly experiences,\" he says, \"are common\nexperiences, and are hallowed by that fact. You are asked to do no more\nthan hundreds of others * * * do with you. If you rinse your greasy\nmess-kit in a tub of greasier water, you are one of many gathered like\nthirsty birds about a road-side puddle. If you fill your lungs and the\npores of your sweaty skin with dust, fellows in adversity are all about\nyou, looking grimier than you feel; and your very complaints uttered in\nchorus partake of the quality of defiant song. To walk is one thing, to\nmarch albeit with sore feet and aching back is another and more\ntriumphant. It is 'Hail! Hail! the gang's all here'--it matters not what\nthe words signify, provided they have a rhythmic swing, and impart a\nchoral sense of collective unity. * * * Every late afternoon,\" he\ncontinues, \"the flag is lowered, and the band plays 'The Star Spangled\nBanner.' Men in ranks are ordered to attention. Men and officers out of\nranks stand at attention where they are, facing a flag, and saluting as\nthe music ceases. Thus to stand at attention toward sundown, listening\nto solemn music sounding faintly in the distance, to see and to feel\nthat every fellow-soldier is standing also rigid and intent, to\nexperience this reverent and collective silence * * * is at once to\nunderstand and to dedicate that day's work.\"\n\nNow all this is very beautiful. But its very beauty is what makes the\nheroism of the soldier as easy as the heroism of others is oftentimes\ndifficult. Compare, for example, the courage of even the most gallant\nsoldier with the courage of the pioneer, who goes alone into vast and\nunfamiliar solitudes, and there amid killing labors and strange perils,\nhews out a path to life, with never the face of a comrade or the voice\nof a woman to give him cheer. I think that I never knew the meaning of\nloneliness, and never understood therefore the sublime heroism of the\npioneer until I journeyed through the prairies of Kansas, the deserts of\nArizona and the pasture lands of Idaho and Montana. Those of you who\nhave traveled through the great west will recognize the sensation that\ncame over me as, hour after hour, I gazed upon those uninhabited wastes\nand saw only at rarest intervals the traces of human beings. I remember\nlooking out upon the prairies late one afternoon and watching the slow\nfading of the day. For three hours, from four until seven o'clock, I saw\non the passing landscape one horseman, as lonely as a solitary sail at\nsea, one prairie wagon with three men gathered about the evening camp\nfire, and two houses on the far horizon. From seven to eight o'clock\ncame on the darkness, and soon we were riding through impenetrable\nnight; and twice, perhaps three times, at intervals of an hour or more,\nI saw a single light twinkling in the distance, marking where some man\nor perhaps some family, was living in the solitudes. And I dreamed that\nnight of the men, and the women, too, who first came out into these vast\nspaces, leaving home, friends, companionship behind to make a trail,\nbuild a home, prepare the way for the coming of civilization. The very\nroad over which my train was moving was the old trail of the Santa Fe,\nwhich had been trod by the feet of thousands of lonely and intrepid\nsouls, who dared the wilderness and the desert as the forerunners of the\nnation's life. These men, and the women also who were with them, to rear\ntheir homes and bear their children, were heroes of a type\nsublime--heroes who never knew the joy of comradeship, the consolation\nof co-operation, but lived and toiled and died alone, with only a dream\nof the future in their hearts to give them courage. It was fitting, and\nyet how sadly belated recognition which was given them in the noble\nmonuments at the World's Fair in Chicago, which bore these inscriptions\nfrom the pen of President Eliot:\n\n    \"To the\n    Brave Settlers\n    Who Leveled\n    Forests\n    Cleared Fields\n    Made Paths by\n    Land and Water\n    And Planted\n    Commonwealths.\"\n\n    \"To the\n    Brave Women\n    Who in\n    Solitudes\n    Amid Strange\n    Dangers and\n    Heavy Toils\n    Reared Families\n    And Made Homes.\"\n\nSuch is the heroism of solitude! But not yet have we reached its purest\nand noblest form. These men and women were lonely, it is true; but they\nwere sustained, after all, by a great hope of the future, by dreams of\nprosperity and happiness to come as the fruit of toil, by ambitions for\nthe children who would survive to better and fuller days. Braver even\nthan these are the men who have faced loneliness without hope--who have\nlooked not merely on solitude, but on solitude ending in defeat and\ndeath--and still have lived as those who had no fear. The classic\nexample of this great heroism has been given to the world by our own\nage, in the story of Captain Scott. Whenever my own faint heart begins\nto fail under the strain of burdens absurdly light, I take up a copy of\nCaptain Scott's Journals, as I would take up a copy of holy scripture,\nand I read as long as my tear-filled eyes can see the page the items\nthat he jotted down in his diary on those last terrible days before he\ndied. Here he is in the midst of the vast solitudes of the arctic\nwastes, struggling along with his two half-dead companions, his feet\nfrozen, food gone, fuel gone, and a hurricane beating him helpless to\nthe ground. He knows he cannot get through to his goal, he knows there\nis no living soul within hundreds of miles to bring him succor. On March\n19th he speaks of their \"forlorn hope\"; on the 22nd he confesses that\n\"he must be near the end\"; on the 29th he speaks of death and says\nflatly, \"I do not think we can hope for any better things now. * * * We\nare getting weaker, and the end cannot be far.\" But never once, for all\nhis anguish and solitude, does he give way. \"We shall stick it out to\nthe end,\" is his word. He can even joke at one time in a grim and\nterrible sort of way. \"No human being could face (this) storm,\" he\nwrites on March 18th, \"and we are nearly worn out. My right foot is\ngone--two days ago I was the proud possessor of the best feet. These are\nthe steps of my downfall.\" And then there come the last hours. His two\ncompanions lie dead, one on either side of him. Outside of his little\nsnow hut is the raging storm. He is alone with death. And as calmly as\nthough he were writing a report in the naval offices in London, he\nscrawls with frozen fingers those immortal letters, first to Mrs. Wilson\nand Mrs. Bowers, the mothers of the two men whose bodies are beside him,\nthen to his own mother and his wife, then to his friends, Sir James M.\nBarrie and Vice-Admiral Egerton, then the statement to the public with\nits closing words, \"I do not regret this journey, which has shown that\nEnglishmen can endure hardships, help one another and meet death with as\ngreat fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took\nthem; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause\nfor complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do\nour best to the last. But had we lived I should have had a tale to tell\nof the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would\nhave stirred the heart of every Englishman.\" Eight months later his\nbody was found, sitting erect, his arms extended to his dead companions\non either side as though his lonely soul sought at the end the comfort\nof even their frozen bodies, and on his face a smile as beautiful as\nthat of a child just fallen into slumber.\n\nHeroism! my friends! What is the heroism of even the bravest soldier\ncompared to heroism such as this? I would not disparage the men who have\nsuffered and died on the fields of Flanders and Galicia. But is it not\ntrue, after all, that we can do much if only we have the dear friends to\nbear us company, and that the real test comes when we stand \"alone,\nalone, all, all alone,\" with the universe and God. To work alone, like\nthe pioneer, with never a hand to clasp and help his own; to die alone,\nlike Captain Scott, with wife, child, mother, friends thousands of miles\naway, all ignorant of his fate, and \"still to do the best to the\nlast\"--this is heroism. The soldier as a soldier for all his courage\ncannot match it.\n\nBut there is still a third aspect of the soldier's life which touches\nvery vitally upon this question of heroism. I refer to the fact that the\nsoldier, in the vast majority of cases, is engaged in a business which\nhas the enthusiastic endorsement of his fellowmen. He is distinctly on\nthe right side. He is doing the popular thing. The eyes of the people\nare upon him. He marches away to the waving of flags and the applause of\nmultitudes. Children cheer him, women embrace him, old men bless him. If\nhe is wounded, he is tenderly cared for by the nation. If he performs\nsome gallant deed, he is rewarded by orders of merit, and perhaps by the\ngift of the Victoria Cross. If he dies, he is buried amid sounding\neulogies and commemorated by statues and inscriptions. \"Victory, or\nWestminster Abbey,\" cried Lord Nelson as he sailed into the battle of\nTrafalgar. And similar, to the degree of humble deserts, is the cry of\nevery soldier or sailor who takes up arms for his country. For the\nmoment he is the symbol of the nation. He embodies within his own single\nperson the hopes and praises of an entire people. He lives, and, if he\ndies, he dies in the good opinion of mankind. And I can tell you that\nnothing makes life so smooth and death so comparatively simple as this\ngood opinion of which I speak. The hardest suffering seems easy, and the\nmost untimely death not altogether unwelcome, if only we can know that\nall men are our friends, and we live or die with their blessings upon\nour heads. \"A good name,\" says the preacher, \"is better than precious\nointment\"; and again he declares, \"A good name is better than riches.\"\nBy which he means, I take it, that there is nothing in the outer world,\nhowever desirable in itself, which can give us compensation for the\nloss of favor of mankind.\n\nNow we begin to get just a glimpse, at least, of a nobler and rarer type\nof heroism than that of the soldier, when we look upon the man who, in\nobedience to some inner impulse of the soul, deliberately alienates\nhimself from the sympathy and the applause of his fellows. Such a man\nmust be regarded as a kind of pioneer or explorer, who goes into the\nsolitudes not of the physical but of the spiritual realm, there to blaze\nnew trails, and, perhaps like Captain Scott, to die alone. A striking\nexample of heroism of this kind, presented in exact antithesis to the\nordinary heroism of the soldier, may be found in John Galsworthy's play,\nThe Mob. At first accepted only as a brilliant piece of imagination, the\ndrama becomes charged with real significance when we learn that its\naction is a more or less exact reproduction of the situation which was\nprecipitated in England during the Boer War by Lloyd-George and his\nfamous \"Stop-the-War party.\" The story of the play, and to a large\nextent of English history in 1899, is that of a Cabinet Minister,\nStephen More by name, who opposes from his seat in the House of Commons\na war threatened by England against a weaker nation, and continues his\nopposition after the war has been declared and an English army has been\nslaughtered. Resigning his office, he stumps the country in a campaign\nfor peace, alienates his wife, who is outraged by his attitude, faces\npersistently the attacks of angry mobs, and at last is murdered and thus\nmade a martyr to his cause. The spiritual, if not the dramatic, climax\nof the play comes in the second scene of the last act, where Stephen\nMore, in answer to his wife and his father-in-law, who are appealing to\nhim for the last time to abandon his mad purpose, contrasts his deeds\nwith those of the soldiers at the front. \"Our men,\" answers More, \"are\ndying out there for the faith that's in them. I believe my faith the\nhigher, the better for mankind. Am I now to shrink away? (Mine's) a\nforlorn hope--not to help let die a fire--a fire that's sacred--not only\nnow in this country, but in all countries for all time.\" And in this\nspirit, with the execrations of his family and of an entire people on\nhis head, he goes alone to a cruel death.\n\nWhat we see in this drama of Mr. Galsworthy is only what we see again\nand again after all in the infinitely greater drama of humanity. The\nnoblest testimony to the quality of men's souls that we have anywhere,\nis that which has been given to us by the \"noble company of the\napostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of\nmartyrs,\" who, refusing to take the easy road of popularity, have\ndeliberately chosen the thorny path of insult, ignominy, destruction,\nfor the faith that glowed within their souls. Isaiah, Jeremiah,\nSocrates, St. Paul, Wycliff, Huss, Savanarola, Martin Luther, John Knox,\nGeorge Fox, John Wesley, Joseph Priestly, Theodore Parker--how the names\nmultiply, all as sweet as honey to our lips, of those who refused to\nbarter their souls even for the good will of men. And first among them\nall, of course, is Jesus, the Nazarene. The noblest thing that was ever\nsaid of the Carpenter-Prophet was this--that \"he made himself of no\nreputation.\" The noblest and also the most pathetic thing that He ever\nsaid of Himself was this--that \"the birds have nests and the foxes\nholes, but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head.\" The noblest\nthing He ever did was this--to walk from the house of Pilate to the\ncrest of Calvary, with the cross upon His back and the railing mob\nbehind Him and before, and never once to falter and complain. Hated and\nhooted by the multitudes who at one time followed Him gladly, deserted\neven by the twelve who had pledged to Him their lives, misunderstood,\ndespised, condemned, spat upon--a stranger even to His mother and His\nbrethren--what a fate was this! And what consummate heroism was needed\nto meet it unafraid! In the face of such a supreme spectacle of\nsacrifice as this, how foolish, how unjust to identify the hero, to any\ndegree of exclusiveness with the soldier. The soldier is a hero, without\ndoubt, but greater than he is the hero who bears not arms but a cross,\nwears not a crown of laurel but a crown of thorns, and dies not on the\nfield of battle but on \"the field of the skull.\" \"He was despised and\nrejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; one from\nwhom men hid their faces; * * * he was oppressed, stricken, smitten of\nGod * * * yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth\"--of whom\nsuch things as this may be truly said, He is the noblest hero of them\nall. James Russell Lowell has set forth this abiding truth in his\nPresent Crisis:\n\n  \"Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls who stood alone,\n  While the men they agonized for, hurled the contumelious stone,\n  Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline,\n  To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,\n  By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.\"\n\nSuch are the types of heroism which I have thought it well to bring to\nyour attention this afternoon. Accepting the soldier as the traditional\nand not unworthy standard of all heroic types, I have nevertheless tried\nto show that there are other men who meet all the hazards of suffering\nand death which he encounters, and yet are denied the aids and comforts\nwhich are his. I have contrasted the utter commonplaces of the obscure\nheroisms of daily life with the pomp and pageantry of martial life. I\nhave contrasted the awful solitude of the men who made new paths and\nfaced unfamiliar perils on prairie, desert and arctic sea, with the\ncheerful comradeship which hallows the experience of the soldier. And I\nhave contrasted the popular acclaim which is the very breath of the\nwarrior's nostrils with the popular odium and hatred which kill the\nprophets of the new and better day. Thus have I moved from what I\nbelieve to be, from its very nature, the lowest, or \"rudest,\" grade of\nheroism, to those which I believe to be the higher and finer grades. And\nit must have long since become evident to you, that every step that I\nhave taken in the progress of my argument has been away from what we\nmay well call the more physical expression of heroic endeavor, to those\nwhich are more moral, or spiritual. That the true soldier is possessed\nof something more than mere brute courage, I would be among the very\nlast, I trust, to deny. But however fine and pure may be the valor of\nhis soul, it still must be admitted, in the last analysis, that the\nsoldier never rids himself of the material accessories and trappings of\nthe world. The flag that greets his eye and the music that beats upon\nhis ear, the personal contact of his fellows upon the march and in the\ntrenches, the medals and monuments that embody a nation's applause and\ngratitude--all these things, with however high an admixture of spiritual\nelements, are still fundamentally \"of the earth, earthy.\" And so\nessential are they to the soldier's life, that we cannot think of that\nlife without them. But how different is the situation when we turn to\nthese other types of heroism of which I have made mention! How do the\nearthly foundations seem to disappear, and those foundations which are\nonly spiritual take their place! These unknown heroes, whose names and\ndeeds are recorded on the tablets in the Postman's Park--what stirred\nthem to action save the spontaneous promptings of their own hearts?\nThose \"brave settlers,\" and \"brave women\" who \"cleared fields\" and \"made\nhomes\" in solitary places--Captain Scott who faced death all alone in\nterrifying storms of the Antarctic--what sustained them but the secret\ncounsel of their inward spirits? And Jesus of Nazareth as he hung upon\nthe cross--upon what did he rely, if not upon God and his own soul? The\nheroism of the soldier, even at its best, is more or less a fleshy,\nworldly thing. The heroism of these others is more and more a spiritual\nunworldly thing, until, at the topmost grade of all, we meet the\nprophet, the saint, the martyr, who matches his naked soul against the\nworld, and gladly loses the one that he may save the other.\n\nIt is when we attain to this viewpoint, that we begin to understand the\nmistake of ordinary opinion in identifying the hero with the soldier.\nEspecially in this age of waxing militarism, it is well for us to note\nthe fallacy which is involved in this primeval superstition. Heroism, at\nits truest and best, is spiritual. It is \"an obedience,\" says Emerson,\n\"to a secret impulse of an individual's character.\" It needs no other\nstimulus, hides in no gorgeous trappings, craves no companionship in\nsuffering, accepts no rewards of merit or applause. Contemptuous of\n\"external good,\" it seeks its own counsel and obeys the mandates of its\nown spirit. Heroism of this kind flourishes in times of war as in all\ntimes of terror. But so essentially brutal, hideous, cruel is every\ncircumstance of war, that even the noblest heroism is degraded and\ndefiled by it. It is only when the arms of the flesh are broken and cast\naside, and the soul stands naked before its Maker, that heroism becomes\ntranscendant in obscurity, loneliness, persecution; when all things that\nthe world can give have failed and dropped away it reveals itself, like\na star at midnight, shining to the glory of Almighty God. Emerson has\nsummed it all up, in his introductory lines to his essay on Heroism--\n\n    \"Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,\n    Sugar spends to fatten slaves,\n    Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;\n    Thunder clouds are Jove's festoons,\n    Drooping oft in wreaths of dread\n    Lightning-knotted round his head;\n    The hero is not fed on sweets\n    Daily his own soul he eats.\"\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n    THE CHRISTIAN LIFE\n    by\n    Elbert Russell\n\n    THE QUAKER OF THE FUTURE TIME\n    by\n    George A. Walton\n\n    THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT\n    by\n    Norman H. Thomas\n\n    THE CHRISTIAN DEMAND FOR\n    SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION\n    by\n    Harry F. Ward\n\n    RELIGION AS REALITY, LIFE AND POWER\n    by\n    Rufus M. Jones\n\n    HEROES IN PEACE\n    by\n    John Haynes Holmes\n\n    William Penn Lectures are published by the Young\n    Friends' Movement. Copies may be obtained from\n    the Headquarters, at the Central Bureau Office,\n    154 N. 15th Street, or from Walter H. Jenkins,\n    140 N. 15th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Paper-bound\n    copies at -- cents; in cloth, -- cents.","title":"Heroes in Peace: The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7654}