other matters,
is to be wild-headed, inconsiderate, self-conceited, and intolerably
arrogant. The bloody battle that Valiant fought, you must know, was not
fought at the mouth of any dark lane in the midnight city, nor on the
side of any lonely road in the moonless country. This terrible fight was
fought in Valiant's own heart. For Valiant was none of your calculating
and cold-blooded friends of the truth. He did not wait till he saw the
truth walking in silver slippers. Let any man lay a finger on the truth,
or wag a tongue against the truth, and he will have to settle it with
Valiant. His love for the truth was a passion. There was a fierceness
in his love for the truth that frightened ordinary men even when they
were on his own side. Valiant would have died for the truth without a
murmur. But, with all that, Valiant had to learn a hard and a cruel
lesson. He had to learn that he, the best friend of truth as he thought
he was, was at the same time, as a matter of fact, the greatest enemy
that the truth had. He had to take home the terrible discovery that no
man had hurt the truth so much as he had done. Save me from my friend!
the truth was heard to say, as often as she saw him taking up his weapons
in her behalf. We see all that every day. We see Wildhead at his
disservice of the truth every day. Sometimes above his own name, and
sometimes with grace enough to be ashamed to give his name, in the
newspapers. Sometimes on the platform; sometimes in the pulpit; and
sometimes at the dinner-table. But always to the detriment of the truth.
In blind fury he rushes at the character and the good name of men who
were servants of the truth before he was born, and whose shield he is not
worthy to bear. How shall Wildhead be got to see that he and the like of
him are really the worst friends the truth can possibly have? Will he
never learn that in his wild-bull gorings at men and at movements, he is
both hurting himself and hurting the truth as no sworn enemy of his and
of the truth can do? Will he never see what an insolent fool he is to go
on imputing bad motives to other men, when he ought to be prostrate
before God on account of his own? More than one wild-headed student of
William Law has told me what a blessing they have got from that great
man's teaching on the subject of controversy. Will the Wildheads here to-
night take a line or two out of that peace-making author and lay them to
heart? "My dear L