2. Another reason is false humility. — Now, humility is good when it stimulates, it is bad when it paralyses the active powers of a man. It may do either. We have noble examples of humility as a stimulus; the sense of weakness making a man all the more ardent to use all the strength he has. But if conscious weakness causes a man to believe that it makes no difference whether he works or not, then his humility is his curse.
^ Some priggish little clerk will say, " I have reason to congratulate myself that I am a civilized person, and not so bloodthirsty as the Mad Mullah." Somebody ought to say to him, "A really good man would be less bloodthirsty than the Mullah. But you are less bloodthirsty, not because you are more of a good man, but because you are a great deal less of a man. You are not bloodthirsty, not because you would spare your enemy, but because you would run away from him." ^
3. Another reason is f&gr — simple cowardice. — A man is peace-loving, he says; but peace at any price is craven. Eight ranks higher than peace, and often both cannot be had at once. Better one Luther who fights and makes mistakes, than a hundred like Erasmus, who make no mistakes or anything else. He who fears to offend the wicked needs more iron in his blood and more grace in his heart. On dress parade his garments may be faultless, but we save our hurrahs for the man who is stained and scarred by battles.
IT Cowardice we call the most contemptible of vices. It is the one whose imputation we most indignantly resent. To be called a coward would make the blood boil in the veins of any of us. But the vice is wonderfully common. Nay, we often find ourselves wondering whether it is not universal, whether we are
* Luther. ^ G. K. Chesterton, All Things Considered.
i84 THE SIN OF MEROZ
not all cowards somewhere in our nature. Physical cowardice all of us do not have. Indeed, physical cowardice is rarer than we think. A war or a shipwreck always brings out our surprise when we see how many men there are that can march up to a battery, or stand and watch the water creep up the side of their ship to drown them, and never quail. But moral courage is another thing. To dare to do just what we know we ought to do, without being in the least hindered or disturbed by the presence of men who we know will either hate or despise or ridicule us for what we are doing — that is rare indeed.^
When all seems lost, and fate unkind
Throws shadows deep around, Be brave, and cast all grief behind,
Be strong, and stand your ground; Line up in front without a fear —
Brace up, and face the blast; Let others weaken in the rear —
Be first, and not the last.
Your trouble, loss, or greatest grief
May in your darkest day Fill black despair with no relief,
Find in the gloom no ray; But struggle on, be brave and strong,
And to the front look forth; This world is not completely wrong —
Press on, and test thy worth.
When trumpets call, line up in front;
The struggle is for life; Where danger lies, let nothing daunt
Your courage in the strife; Brave souls meet fate with smiling face;
Be proud to die for right. To fall in front is no disgrace,
Care you how goes the fight?
4. Another reason is indolence — mere laziness. — Perhaps Meroz was not afraid. Perhaps she was not shy and self-distrustful. Perhaps she simply believed that the work of God would some- how get itself done without her, and so waited and waited and came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. We are always giving elaborate and complicated accounts both of the
1 Phillips Brooks.
JUDGES V. 23 185
virtues and of the vices of our fellow-men, which are really as simple and explicable as possible, as clear as daylight. A man does a good thing and we are not content to say that he does it because he is a good man, but must find strange obscure motives for it, some far-off policies and plans, some base root for this bright flower. Another man lets his duty, his clear duty, go undone, and again we set our ingenuity to work to guess why he does not do it. He misconceives his duty, he is too modest, he is waiting for something ; when the real trouble is in a simple gross laziness, a mere self-indulgent indolence, which makes him quite indifferent to duty.
Thanks to a few clouds that show
So white against the blue, At last even I begin to know
What I was born to do;
What else but here to lie
And bask me in the sun? Well pleased to see the sails go by
In silence one by one;
Or lovingly, along the low
Smooth shore no plough depraves,
To watch the long low lazy flow Of the luxurious waves.^
III.
The Curse.
i. Is it Unchristian?
1. " Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof." The words are strong. Are we to say that the curse of Meroz is " a dark patch of human passion " ; that Deborah, in the heat of her exultation and vengeance, was strictly incapable of a balanced moral judgment ; that not to have taken part in the pursuit of Sisera was naturally a crime in the eyes of a passionate woman, eager for the emancipation of her race and for the triumph of her cause ; but that it is altogether impossible to read history by the