Then, too, there is no small danger of
failing to discriminate between a rational philanthropy, with its
adaptation of means to ends, and that spiritual knight-errantry which
undertakes the championship of every novel project of reform, scouring
the world in search of distressed schemes held in durance by common sense
and vagaries happily spellbound by ridicule. He must learn that,
although the most needful truth may be unpopular, it does not follow that
unpopularity is a proof of the truth of his doctrines or the expediency
of his measures. He must have the liberality to admit that it is barely
possible for the public on some points to be right and himself wrong, and
that the blessing invoked upon those who suffer for righteousness is not
available to such as court persecution and invite contempt; for folly has
its martyrs as well as wisdom; and he who has nothing better to show of
himself than the scars and bruises which the popular foot has left upon
him is not even sure of winning the honors of martyrdom as some
compensation for the loss of dignity and self-respect involved in the
exhibition of its pains.
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