Before I proceed to a further consideration of this radiancy of a large-hearted, moral heroism, I want to answer the objection raised to what I have already written by a young man to whom I read it. He said: "But I am not an Emerson, or a Wendell Phillips, or a John Brown, or Tolstoi. What chance do I have of exercising moral courage?"
A very pertinent question, and one I am glad to try to answer. I do not believe there was ever a man, a time, or a place which did not, sometime, somehow, call for the exercise of moral heroism. And especially in these days of lax principle, breaking down of old standards, political graft, and worship of material success. What minister is there in no matter what church who is not called upon, now and again, nay, often, to speak fearlessly upon some practical subject upon which people are looking for light? Is he a moral hero who taboos such subjects, who refrains from discussing them in the pulpit because they are not "gospel" subjects? What gospel subject can surpass in interest and in human and divine appeal to the soul of man the "white-slave" question, and a host of other subjects upon which ordinary well-to-do men and women need enlightenment? That minister is endowed with the radiant power of moral courage who, even though he offend some of the smug, comfortably righteous members of his congregation, dares to denounce the church people who rent their houses and lands for immoral purposes, for breweries, for saloons, for any and all things that destroy men's bodies and souls and bring suffering to innocent women and children. Take the child-labor question, especially in the communities where men live who have become rich by using child labor, whether in cotton factories, glass factories, tobacco, or any other factories. Should not such men hear the gospel plainly and without equivocation? Who is to give it? The minister of the Christ who came to seek and save the down-trodden, the injured, the forsaken, the lost. Then all honor to the man who dares to speak out, dares to be true to the inward voice, though he lose caste, position, salary.
The same courage is required of the politician. How often the public clamor for, or against, the very opposite of that which is right. In California a few years ago there was a great fight for the exclusion of the Japanese and Chinese. How about the doctrine of the brotherhood of man? Can we play fast and loose with eternal principles? No! Let the true politician stand by the truth and let the poltroon sacrifice his principles for temporary advancement and gain.