Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/95

 Christian home, and he had slipped those strings. He had thought that it was manly to surrender to the current ideals of the college; that in cutting loose from the influence of his home he was doing a brave and courageous thing. But the girl knew he was doing it because he was a coward and she had the courage to tell him so. And he had come to see it in that light for himself. In his college fraternity and in his own class, men were praising him because he had broken from the old enslavements of home and was living his own life like a man. But he knew that he was nothing but a coward, who

"Held that hope was all a lie And faith a form of bigotry And love a snare that caught him. Then thought to comfort human tears With sundry ill-considered sneers  At things his mother taught him."

And he had thought he was doing it because he was courageous, whereas the real motive was that of fear. He was a coward, without courage enough to fly his own flag unflinchingly, to be and do the thing which in his heart, in the very fibres of his being, flesh of his mother's flesh, he knew was the thing he should be and do.

And if we would really look into our lives we should discover that fear plays a far larger part with us than we ever dreamed. Men and women lie. Why? Simply because they are afraid of