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The first generous human recognition, expressed with heroic emphasis, and clear conviction visible amid its fiery exaggeration, that one's poor battle in this world is not quite a mad and futile, that it is perhaps a worthy and manful one, which will come to something yet: this fact is a memorable one in every history; and for me Sterling, often enough the stiff gainsayer in our private communings, was the doer of this.
Again, when the gainsayer in a public debate is closely pursued by the truth, he uses invectives instead of arguments, which is a plain indication of his mouth being stopped.
"Thou servant of Rolf, the traitor and murderer, hearken! I say that I am King of Oakenrealm, and the very son of King Christopher the Old; and that will I maintain with my body against every gainsayer. Thou Lord of Brimside, wilt thou gainsay it? Then I say thou liest, and lo here, my glove!" And he cast it down before the Lord.
He was laughed to scorn as a half-mad enthusiast; denounced as a blasphemer and gainsayer of Scripture truth; cried down as an ignoramus, unworthy of the slightest attention from men of science; tantalised by half promises; wearied by vexatious delays: and yet never did his courage fail nor his purpose waver.
Hearken, O God, Thou best judge; Truth Itself, hearken to what I shall say to this gainsayer, hearken, for before Thee do I speak, and before my brethren, who employ Thy law lawfully, to the end of charity: hearken and behold, if it please Thee, what I shall say to him.
Each has its significant proper name, which in most cases conveys the idea of brilliant whiteness, a characteristic of Celtic fairy objects. His ship, for example, is named White Form, his shield "Night Gainsayer," his dagger "White Haft." The deadly blows attributed by Nennius to him in the Battle of Mount Badon without doubt traditionally were dealt by Caliburn.
They recounted how, in his oratorical frenzies, he used to fling his homespun coat in the air and crack the heels of his red-topped boots together with an emphasis that would stop the mouth of the most impudent gainsayer. They told how by this masterful eloquence opposers were silenced, heretics were brought to orthodoxy, and infidels were converted.
The compendious method of silencing a gainsayer or satisfying an anxious inquirer by flourishing a New Testament in his face, and crying 'En sacrum codicem, seems hardly likely to have been very effective.
As these show that it is the duty of a bishop to exhort and convince the gainsayer, and to stop his mouth, the question may be asked, How is this to be done? It cannot be done otherwise than to propose to the gainsayer an interview, and if he attend to it, to refute his arguments.
To them he was the gainsayer, the destroyer, the most shattering of existent forces. And, in themselves, how large and powerful a section of every modern State they are! They may almost be called the Church and State incarnate, and they seldom hesitate to call themselves so. But, against all their authorities, formulae, and traditions, Tolstoy stood in perpetual rebellion.
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