- ing it think that having got so much it can get
the rest, and so it prolongs the life of evil. That is exactly what compromise did in the old days of slavery. Every one of those early compromises prolonged the life of evil which at last the nation had to pour out its blood to destroy. That is what compromise always does. It persuades evil that, after all, maybe evil can win the victory, that having gotten so much from us it can get the rest if only it will be patient, and we simply increase the courage of our foe in proportion as we make any compromise with him instead of standing up face to face against him from the very beginning. And so it destroys the power and might of right causes by mixing in the taint of wrong. You do not make a good man better by putting a dash of bad in him. You do not make a good cause stronger by letting the evil come in; you only weaken its strength and power. Compromise plays into the hands of the very evil which we are here to overcome and destroy.
In the fourth place, compromise breaks down the strength of rigid consistency, and by letting in one qualification prepares the way for others. That is the reason why it is so much harder for a man to be a moderate drinker than to be a total abstainer. As was said of Samuel Johnson, "He could practice abstinence but not temperance." When a man has made up his mind that
