Today those feet which tread in lowliest ways,
    Yet follow Christ,
  Are by the secular lords of power and praise
    Both washed and kissed.

  Hail, ordinance sage of hoar antiquity,
    Which She retains,
  That Church who teaches man how meek should be
    The head that reigns!

[Footnote 1:  Mandatum Novum:—­hence the name of “Maundy Thursday.”]

* * * * *

PHYSICAL COURAGE.

The Romans had a military machine, called a balista, a sort of vast crossbow, which discharged huge stones.  It is said, that, when the first one was exhibited, an athlete exclaimed, “Farewell henceforth to all courage!” Montaigne relates, that the old knights, in his youth, were accustomed to deplore the introduction of fencing-schools, from a similar apprehension.  Pacific King James predicted, but with rejoicing, the same result from iron armor.  “It was an excellent thing,” he said,—­“one could get no harm in it, nor do any.”  And, similarly, there exists an opinion now, that the combined powers of gunpowder and peace are banishing physical courage, and the need of it, from the world.

Peace is good, but this result of it would be sad indeed.  Life is sweet, but it would not be sweet enough without the occasional relish of peril and the luxury of daring deeds.  Amid the changes of time, the monotony of events, and the injustice of mankind, there is always accessible to the poorest this one draught of enjoyment,—­danger.  “In boyhood,” said the Norwegian enthusiast, Ole Bull, “I loved to be far out on the ocean in my little boat, for it was dangerous, and in danger one draws near to God.”  Perhaps every man sometimes feels this longing, has his moment of ardor, when he would fain leave politics and personalities, even endearments and successes, behind, and would exchange the best year of his life for one hour at Balaklava with the “Six Hundred.”  It is the bounding of the Berserker blood in us, —­the murmuring echo of the old death-song of Regnar Lodbrog, as he lay amid vipers in his dungeon:—­“What is the fate of a brave man, but to fall amid the foremost?  He who is never wounded has a weary lot.”

This makes the fascination of war, which is in itself, of course, brutal and disgusting.  Dr. Johnson says, truly, that the naval and military professions have the dignity of danger, since mankind reverence those who have overcome fear, which is so general a weakness.  The error usually lies in exaggerating the difference, in this respect, between war and peace.  Madame de Sevigne writes to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, after a campaign, “I cannot understand how one can expose himself a thousand times, as you have done, and not be killed a thousand times also.”  To which the Count answers, that she overrates the danger; a soldier may often make several campaigns without drawing a sword, and be in a battle without seeing an enemy, —­as, for example, where one is in the second line, or rear guard, and the first line decides the contest.  He finally quotes Turenne, and Maurice, Prince of Orange, to the same effect, that a military life is less perilous than civilians suppose.