Sharp County record., 1885-04-09
FALLING ASLEEP IN SIN.
The Symptoms of This Dangerous Condi-
tion of the Soul-Flimsy Excessos.

ton of the Soul-Flimsy E1cesses.
The most serious of the symptoms of
sin is the sleep of conscience which it
produces. This sleep is broken by
many incidents of life, even sometimes
by specially aggravated sins. Men are
surprised into wakefulness by their
misfortunes; it was so that the prod
igal "came to himself" " They are
rudely walked out of their conscience
sleep by their own conduct. 1t may be
only a storm of unreasonable passion;
the very intensity of Saurs anger
against Christians helped to prepare
the shock of the binding light that
felled the fierce prosecutor to the earth;
but, unhappily, the waking is not al
ways to the full realization of the truth,
and the slumber soon begins again.
For the deep slumbers of sin nothing
but binding Gghtnings of law and
awful foreShowings of the end seem to
be adequate to arouse the sleepers.
The drowsiness is pervasive, and it
often lasts on through all warnings but
those which shake the soul with feaH
but there are many young persons who
are still in the early stages of this sleep
of sir, and their drowsiness may be
overcome by jealous efforts to awaken
them. There are few plain facts
which ought to rouse such persons
One is that the habit of Indifference to
religious duties grows upon them. The
unheeded call to repentance is soon
scarcely heard. The neglect of divine
obligations becomes easy, almost nat
ural enough to seem right. A false
standard of conduct is set up in the
heart, and this standard gradually de-
parts more and more from the Divine
law, and at length authorizes what
once the advancing sinner would have
despised and scorned to do.
Surely, when one finds his conscience
hardening and becoming insensible,
there is intelligent reason for alarm. If
he is less susceptible to rebukes of con-
science, he knows it is not because he
is better man, but because he is pass
ing into the deep sleep of sin. All
things relax in him and around him.
He is less offended by gross sins in
others; he is less conscious of his own
sins. A moments reflection will con-
vince him that he is losing the habit of
cOndemning wrong and approving right
in many things. He perfectly well
knows that it is not because he is wiser
and is casting off superstition. He has
no wisdom that condemns innocence or
prayer or devout feelings; that approves
guilty conduct, prayerless living, and
Indifference to all spiritual things, He
knows, indeed, that it can not be wise
to live like a polished beast, as in
sensible to immortal meanings in life as
if he had no soul; and yet he is lapsing
day by day into such life, and he
hears less and less distinctly the inner
voices that call him to higher life.
Passing into deeper sleep, he perceives
with no Keen regret that he neither
prays, nor loves God. nor desires to be
pure in heart apd life. This process of
self-blindihg, of putting out the eyes
and killing the religious desires, is a
most alarming fact, if the poor souls
that are undergoing it could but be
stirred to look at it. If man takes
stock of himself, and finds that he is
less offended by sin in others, less con-
scious of it in himself; that he cares
less for pure living, and condones his
own faults with more ease, and is more
content to be what he is and less de-
sirOus to be better, this stock-taking
ought to rouse him out OF his slumber
of conscience.
For in truth 1t is an awful thing for a
soul made in Gods image, and taught
His will and law, to be gradually laps
Ing into unconcern about all the inter-
ests of his immortality. Nor are any of
the hlmsy excuses he makes good even
TO his own weakened sight. Does he
say: "God will not deal hardly with
me?" Does he forget that he is not do
lng what he plainly knows to be right,