"I think, Walter, the difference is just this: in the course you took, your firmness and patience were for an _unworthy_ object; had you taken the other course, they would have been for a _worthy_ object.  It seems to me that this makes all the difference.  I could not myself call that moral courage which made a man carry through, spite of all hindrances, opposition, and with much personal sacrifice, a purpose which he must know to be unworthy.  Now, I will give you an illustration of what I mean by an example.  And first, I would remind you that all my heroes hitherto have been those who showed their moral courage about worthy objects; for instance, Washington, Howard, Colonel Gardiner, the young man in the American revival.  But the person whose moral courage I am now going to mention was not on other occasions one of my heroes, but his conduct on one particular occasion is specially to the point just now.  For I want you to see, dear boy, that true moral courage is shown, not in sticking to a thing just because you have said it, when you must know that you ought not to have said it, but in giving up what you have said, and bearing the reproach of doing so, when you have become convinced that you have said or undertaken what was wrong.  It is duty, in fact, that makes all the difference."