National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1873-03-07
CuriOsitics OF Conscience.

Truly, conscience is queer thing.
Existent in some shape, in every human
soul, it's operations are as uncertain as
subject 10 law. Is il an innate faculty,
or is it merely product of education?
asks the metaphyscian, and straightway
the whole body of abstract thinkers is
by the ears, in hopeless effort TO solve
the unsolvable problem. On this ques-
ton hangs n good deal OF truth doubt
less f; but it is not with abstraction that
we care to deal The human conscience
in its actual workings furnishes mys-
terry enough, without going beyond its
outward manifestations. History is
full of strange doings, resulting solely
4 from incomprehensib cranks OF mems
consciences. Caesar faltered when
about to invade his country, aghast ut
the enormity of the technical crime he
was about to commit in merely crossing
the stream which merely bounded his
right. But for his real crimes after he
had crossed, we find no sign of contri-
tion in any act or word of his. Henry
VIII sought the Pope's pardon in adj
vance, when lie wished to contract
marriage forbidden by the canon, but
he had no qualms Of conscience at
spmning thepapacy when he wanted to
/ dissolve the marriage in question. Our
own Puritan forefathers dared many
dangers, and endured many hardships,
for the sake Of freedom of conscience,
and straightway proceeded to persecute
Quakers and Baptists who claimed
like freedom.
We have outgrown many of these old
errors, but our consciences are queer
things still. Straining at n gnat and
swallowing camel, is as true story
now as it was eighteen centuries ago.
Almost every profession has ten
dency TO work pattern OF its own into
its followers consciences ; and so we
/ find men everywhere disposed to con-
done certain sins in people of their own
/ cloth, which are quite as bad as other
lapses from morality for which they
have no liberation. We once heard an
eminent lawyer say, that in his pro-
/ fession there is especial perll-that the
necessity under which every attorney
constantly labors of drawing nice dis
tinctions between his own and his
clients's responsibility for questionable
proceedings, and that, too, with the
weight of his own pecuniary interest
constantly upon the wrong side, de-
velops, in many cases, what is termed
the illegal conscience" with which
everybody n familiar. Theologians tell
us that they find it necessary to guard
themselves constantly against the for
nation of " ecclesiastical consciences,
which shall make juggling with words
stand for right thinking, to the detri-
ment of the moral sense. SO subtle
is casuistry in morals, and so strong is
the instinct Of self-preservation IN all
organizations, that the clergyman dan
ger in this respect in peculiarly great,
and the only wonder is that SO few
ministers succumb to it.
But most tempted of all, perhaps, is
the merchant and while there are un-
doubtedly sound consciences IN many
counting rooms, it can not be denied
that mercantile morals are often at ebb-
tide. The apparent difficulty of COM
peting, by strictly fair means, with men
who are not very scrupulous, and the
extreme ease with which unfair advan-
tages may be taken in commercial mat
ters. makes the merchant S conscience
perpetually besieged castle, unless, in
deed, it surrenders at discretion, and
adopts the code of it's conquer rs.
We once knew merchant, a plain,
blunt man, who would say of an article
which a customer was about to buy,
at is not worth the money, sir. 1t
looks pretty well on the outside, but 1t
has several concealed defects. can't
sell it for less, and l have nothing bet
ter to offer You, but my advice is not
to buy it. Mr.. ", on the next block,
has something very much better at the
same price Now, all this was simply
what honesty dictated, and yet so rare
is this sort of hor esty, this old mer-
chant was known far and wide as
"queer old S." and there was not ~
few people who thought him crazy.