HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

Courage–the Basis of Other Virtues

Courage is not an isolated virtue so much as the ground and basis of the virtues. It is like the tingling of health in a man’s body which makes itself felt in every activity.

I cannot help but wonder at the electric current. It drives an engine; it lights the house in the evening; it rings a bell. One single energy and yet that single energy shows itself powerfully in all these different forces, and so are the forces which God has given a man fed by the single energy of courage.

If we could get deep enough down among our vices, we would probably find they had a common source. Somewhere deep down in the unfathomed darkness there is one spark of hell that sets them all afire. So with our virtues and all that makes us men, there is one spirit that kindles and sustains them, and that enkindling energy is fortitude. For we never can be patient without courage, and without courage, we never can be pure. It calls for a little courage to be truthful, and it calls for a little courage to be kind. And sometimes it takes a great deal of courage just to say what we ought to say, and sometimes it takes more courage to say nothing.

My fellow Ministers, brothers and sisters, in this strange life of ours, never forget that fortitude is victory. There is no final failure for the man who can say I am the master of my fate. Never to tremble at the looming shadow, never to shrink from the unwelcome duty, never to despair when things seem hopeless, is the one road to the music and the crown.

Do you know the commonest command in Scripture? The commonest command in Scripture is Fear not. Times without number in the Word of God it rings out upon us, Thou shalt not be afraid. For courage is at the roots of life, and it is the soil in which every virtue flourishes; it is no isolated or independent grace but is the nursing mother of them all.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW …