The Temple of Virtue

of which is a man or hero. In other words, among the ancient Romans, as among the early peoples generally, to be a man meant being brave, and hardy, and heroic. Courage, therefore, is the oldest of the virtues. It is regal in its ancestry, whatever may be said regarding its intrinsic worth. It was the first of all the moral qualities to be widely recognized and definitely honored. Before the human race had learned the value of honesty, or the power of justice, or the dignity of prudence, and long before people had come to see the beauty of sympathy, of kindness, or of self-control, the importance of manliness was clearly understood, and courage was distinctly honored and exalted. It has the pulse-beat of battle in it, and the thrill of patriotic effort, and the pathos of self-sacrifice. It is clothed in all the glory of the ancient Sagas, and it marches down the centuries to the sounding music of the epics of all lands. When we think of it we think of men who have dared all for the right, and endured all for the true, and of women who "received their dead by a resurrection, and were tortured, not accepting their deliverance." By courage, perhaps, as much as by the quality of faith, "the elders obtained a good report." For what shall we say "of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephtha; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets?" Surely these were all courageous men. Moreover, the time would fail us, as it failed the early Christian writer, if we und...