it may be sincerely, that they cannot
afford to face the practical logic of their social, political, and
religious beliefs. They shrink from the consequences of the good fight
of faith. "Had I only myself to consider," says one, "how gladly would
I sacrifice myself to attack this wrong or that iniquity." We need
offer no opinion about the moral quality of such a position; enough to
say that it is idle to ignore, or even to underrate, the force of it.

There are circumstances which are too strong for most men after they
have put themselves in a given relation to circumstances.

Let me say a word here about circumstances, which will seem to
contradict some things you will find in this book, if you have interest
enough in it to read it through. A Glasgow minister some time ago made
a stand against a considerable minority in his church over some matter
that, as he said, involved a principle for which he should fight. It
cost him many of his more wealthy members and adherents. "Not many of
us," I said to him after, "have your courage to take so serious a
risk." "Nor should I have had it," he answered, "had I not means that
make me independent of my salary." It was a candid admission, and it
reaches a long way. The strength of this man was in his position quite
as much as in himself; and this is probably true of the great average
of us. Circumstances may mean possibilities, more often than
possibilities mean, or create, circumstances. What we can do is not
only determined by what we bring into the world, but by what we find
when we get here. Give, then, whatever courage is native to you its
full purchase, by whatever favour you have in circumstances. It is
here the young man has a great advantage; he is at an age when he can
afford risks; let him use it before his years are mortgaged by other
demands.

In public life he can base his efforts on the fact that there are
tremendous evils that need resistance, that there are sacred causes
which need assistance. He can afford, as never again, to close with
the truth that there is a corporate life, a public virtue, a humanity
of the body politic, with laws, responsibilities, and duties. In
social life he can refuse to bow to an arbitrary and often empty
fashion, or to immolate himself on the altar of mammon. He can be a
living protest against the tyranny and lust of money, which are eating
away the heart and destroying the soul of Christendom. He can stand
for th