These are the times that try men’s souls. The Easter season is one of quiet introspection and muted sorrow. It is the setting of twilight over the human spirit. But, even in the deepest night, where peril seems to lurk in every shadow, the promise of the sun’s purifying light brings hope.

The agony of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion embodies the murky terrors of the night’s bleak obscurity and his miraculous resurrection is the sudden dawning of morning.

Easter is the celebration of indomitable, irrepressible spirit overcoming ultimate evil in its pursuance of ultimate good. The story of Christ is compelling because it is the story of a man’s indomitable spirit, his unyielding stand for ultimate good against an oppressive state and a dishonest people.

The story of Christ is the patronage for a long-line of indefatigable individualists whose stories loom large from the annals of history.

Simon de Montfort, who fought for democracy and equal application of the law in a time when the law was rooted in a caste system of blood and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, last true prince of Wales and warrior for just law these are only a few examples of the distinguished spiritual sons sired by Christ.

In America, this ideology is the apex of a dream.

This is a nation built on an ideal of ultimate good that can only be purchased through wholly meritorious efforts.

But the attainment of that ultimate value, whether corporeal or spiritual, does not come cheaply since, as Thomas Paine once wrote, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

Tyranny is the rule of dishonesty. It is what reigned when Pontius Pilate allowed Jesus, whom he believed to be innocent, be sacrificed. It is what reigned when the multitudes chose the life of Barabbas, a murderer, over Jesus. And it is what daily reigns when values are frittered away through equivocation and laziness.

Jesus himself warned against this, saying, “watch yourself lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life…But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place” (Luke 22:34-36).

There is a duality between the struggle against evil and the attainment of an ideal. It is plainly written in Scripture, for only through suffering could Jesus attain his birthright. Similarly, there is a duality to value. Without a negative value to stand in contrast, a positive value is meaningless. There is no light without darkness, no good without evil. As Thomas Paine wrote, “’Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.”

Would freedom and justice be valued so highly if it did not have so high a price? Yes, it is grim to think that freedom has been bought in blood, both in the context of America and the salvation of the soul. But it is precisely an examination of the implications of this that breeds love of meritorious ideals and efforts.

And, so long as the duality of values exists, and engenders a contemplative process that leads to a spiritual striving to absolutely uphold absolute ideas, evil, though it exists, cannot win outright.