Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-30
The Confounding Of Wrong itE RJSh
 A DiscourSe by DE- Todd.

A Discourse by Drs Todd.
 At the Church of the Redeemer yesterday morning Rev. Dr. Todd preached an unusu- ally strong sermon from Isaiah, V. 20, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil saying: It is hard to believe that men can so lose sight of moral landmarks as to believe evil good, and good evil, yet they do. Certain criminals before committing their acts often force themselves to take such a view of their necessities as to put sort of right on their side. Young men often in or der to ''see more of the world" as they term it, persuade themselves that they were brought up too strictly, &c. Men who would hardly dare to do wrong, with all the stars of heaven looking solemnly down upon them, first raise 8 great smoke and obscure the light of heaven. They turn the charts upside down or put on distorted glasses to examine them with, and then sail away whithersoever they will. They deprave their consciences so as to make evil seem good and good evil. A greater writer than Shakespeare or Milton has exhibited the prince of darkness as exer- cising this gift when he said to our Saviour, "Cast myself down, for it is written Ho shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up."
 Now it is doubtful whether anyone con- mits sin, or goes far in sinful course without some way quieting his conscience, and persuading himself that evil is good or at least is not so evil as is commonly sup posed.
 The will has powerful influence. If 8 man believes it is cold day he is apt to feel ha iy tn ha S1c he has many more pains than if he determin- ed to be well.
 A man sees profit in an investment if his interest is there, where no others can behold it, and those who take certain view of duty are apt to have their own ideas concerning it.
 The first efforts of the temptsr always are to induce the victim to accept the common idea of right and wrong is not correct, and furnishing with agreements to try and prove this. Then look out.
 An important help is the practice of calling evil not by it's right name, for above a cer- tain social line there are no thieves in these days. They are only defaulters, or occa- sionaIly an embezzler. There are no infdels now, they are all liberals no dishonesties, only irregularities. No dissolute young men, only little wild, or sowing their wild oats no drunkards, but victims of intemperance- no libertines, but those that are "a little fast"
 The plain, strong language of the Bible in which it speaks of the sins of men. is too coarse for the ears of this generation-it is shocking. Let us by ali means revise it, and make the evil seem, if not good, less evil.
 The more that we lose the clear apprehen- sion of good as good, and evil as evil, the more tremendous the eternal gulf between them and the more he sins the more imper- feet becomes his moral vision, and the less awful becomes his wickedness, until at last he is ready to say, "Evil, be thou my good"
 But this is only the beginning. Losing sight of the differences between right and wrong, or even mistaking the one for the other, one is often plunged into sin, especial ly when the desire to sin furnishes the mo- tive for trying to make wrong seem right.
 Find man that knows the difference be- tween right and wrong and you will have man on whom you can rely. Otherwise, what have you got?
 How few of us bring ourselves to the test of 8 thorough examination? We take it for granted that we like what is right, instead of saying 1t is right. Yet by Gods standard and not by our own mistaken opinions VIC at last to be judged. We should have constant undertone of solemn remembrance that for everything there must be one day an account given to God. M. c. $.