bility be avoided, and there are others which can
be avoided only by the sacrifice of principle, or by the surrender of
opportunities for doing good, and which, therefore, to a virtuous man are
inevitable.

The *physical courage*, commonly so called, which is prompt and fearless
in the presence of imminent danger, or in armed conflict with enemies, may
be, or may not be, a virtue. It may proceed from a mind too shallow and
frivolous to appreciate the worth of life or the magnitude of the peril
that threatens it; it may, as often in the case of veteran soldiers, be
the result of discipline without the aid of principle; or it may depend
wholly on intense and engrossing excitement, so that he who would march
fearlessly at the head of a forlorn hope might quail before a solitary
foe. But if one be, in the face of peril, at the same time calm and
resolute, self-collected and firm, cautious and bold, fully aware of all
that he must encounter and unfalteringly brave in meeting it, such courage
is a high moral attainment. Its surest source is trust in the Divine
providence,--the fixed conviction that the inevitable cannot be otherwise
than of benignant purpose and ministry, though that purpose may be
developed and that ministry effected only in a higher state of being. To
this faith must be added a strong sense of one's manhood, and of his
superiority by virtue of that manhood over all external surroundings and
events. We are conscious of a rightful supremacy over the outward world,
and deem it unworthy to succumb, without internecine resistance, to any
force by which we may be assailed, whether that force be a power of nature
or a wrongful assault from a fellow-man. It is the presence of this
consciousness that wins our admiration for all genuine heroism, and the
absence of it at the moment of need that makes cowardice contemptible.

There is a *moral courage* required in pursuing our legitimate course in
life, or in discharging our manifest duty, notwithstanding straitnesses,
hindrances, obstacles, to which the feeble and timid could not but yield.
The constituent elements of this type of courage are precisely the same
that are needed in the encounter with physical peril. In both cases it is
equally unmanly to succumb until we have resisted to the utmost. But while
physical courage can at best only insure our safety, moral courage
contributes essentially to the growth of mind and character; and the
larger the opportunity for