Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/128

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principles are, or when we hold back something that is vital, or cover over deceptively or misleadingly something essential. When we take before men a position that is inconsistent with the position that in our hearts we are taking before God, that is compromise, and that is wrong. Regarding the truth in which we believe, the principles by which we know life ought to be lived, regarding these things there cannot be compromise, in our lives or in the Christian Church.

There is a noble essay by Mr. John Morley, as he once was, on this subject of compromise, its nature and limits, of which Scott Holland says in "Lux Mundi" that "no one can read that book without being either the better or the worse for it." In it Morley takes up three different spheres of life. First, the formation of opinion; second, the expression of opinion when it is called out from us; and, third, the propagation of opinion; and then he pursues this line of argument: In the matter of the formation of opinion there cannot be any compromise at all. Every one of us is bound to hunt for the truth, no matter what the truth may be, and when we have found it, to give our lives absolutely to it. In the realm of the expression of opinion, nobody has any right to deceive any one regarding his principles and convictions when they are called forth. But in the third place, he admits room