“We should avoid everything like the ferocity of bigotry.
There are religious people about, who, I have no doubt, were born of a woman, but appear to have been suckled by a wolf.
I have done them no dishonour: were not Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome, so fed?
Some warlike men of this order have had power to found dynasties of thought; but human kindness and brotherly love consort better with the kingdom of Christ.
We are not to be always going about the world searching out heresies, like terrier dogs sniffing for rats, and to be always so confident of one’s own infallibility, that we erect ecclesiastical stakes at which to roast all who differ from us.
And, dear brethren, we must acquire certain moral faculties and habits, as well as put aside their opposites. He will never do much for God who has not integrity of spirit.
If we be guided by policy, if there be any mode of action for us but that which is straightforward, we shall make shipwreck before long.
Resolve, dear brethren, that you can be poor, that you can be despised, that you can lose life itself, but that you cannot do a crooked thing.
For you, let the only policy be honesty.
May you also possess the grand moral characteristic of courage.
By this we do not mean impertinence, impudence, or self-conceit; but real courage to do and say calmly the right thing, and to go straight on at all hazards, though there should be none to give you a good word.
I am astonished at the number of Christians who are afraid to speak the truth to their brethren.
I thank God I can say this, there is no member of my church, no officer of the church, and no man in the world to whom I am afraid to say before his face what I would say behind his back.
Under God I owe my position in my own church to the absence of all policy, and the habit of saying what I mean.
The plan of making things pleasant all round is a perilous as well as a wicked one. If you say one thing to one man, and another to another, they will one day compare notes and find you out, and then you will be despised.
The man of two faces will sooner or later be the object of contempt, and justly so.
Now, above all things, avoid that. If you have anything that you feel you ought to say about a man, let the measure of what you say be this— ‘How much dare I say to his face?’
We must not allow ourselves a word more in censure of any man living.
If that be your rule, your courage will save you from a thousand difficulties, and win you lasting respect.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, The Sword and Trowel: 1874 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1874), 78-79.
