I recently read a book by a man who has learned some of life’s hardest lessons and, by his own account, is still learning them every day. He is not an evangelist. He is not selling salvation. He is not offering a miracle cure for what ails us. The lessons he shares come from his own life—one very different from mine....

In 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine stood alone on the Senate floor and delivered what would become one of the most courageous speeches in American political history. At a time when fear and smear were the tools of the day, she called out the reckless accusations and bullying tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Senate, she said, had...