The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-06-16
CONSCIENCE AS A GUIDE.
(By j. O. Glass AZ

Wy y. W. Sldss Al
That there is an innate principle in man which
we call conscence-a little secret monitor unseen.
not capable of analysis ever present with to
guard and guide our every action, ever giving its
assuring approbat on when we are right, ever
warning and calling us back when go wrong
that it exists IN all persons capable of reason Il
believe no intelligent person will deny. 1t seems
to be our moral sense of right and wrong, and is
absent only in lunatics persons without reason.
ing powers. After carefully reading the history
of the 1.-Two Old Faiths | am led TO believe that
conscience will be true. not to desires or in
clinations. but to teachings and it is of this
wish speak. 1t will point out to the paths of
right and wrong only we have been taught or
educated to believe them to be, hence the cause
of so many systems of faith theology differing
absolutely and entirely in the world that it will
be your guide in whatever you have been taught
to honestly believe is right wrong, whatever
that theory be, firmly believe; and think
the facts of experience and history will bear me
out to the truthfulness of this assertion that it
is principle susceptible of cultivation l have
every to believe, that it will point out and
approve or dsapprove our actions only we
have been taught to believe principles of right or
wrong, and when once we honestly believe in any
certain rules OF right and wrong it will be true
guide in that theory. whatever it may be, also
firmly believe. If you are born a savage taught
to be a savage in your earliest infancy, reared
amid savage surroundings and ways, and no
other. it will sanction your doings a savage; If
born a Mohammedan, reared as Mohammedan,
educated in all the creed and isms of Mohammed-
ansm without means of comparing the teachings
with that of any other creed, it will sanction you
in that faith; or if you taught from earliest
infancy to bow down before gods of wood stone
or animals knowing no other. the Hindu does
this sense of right and wrong or conscience will
approve your actions only you Jealous in
carrying out your teachings. You may be an
atheist, iniidel, protestant catholic, follower
of any other system of religion. theory. prac.
tice you may firmly believe in and it will sanction
your conduct only when you follow your creed
and teachings. Do you suppose the Mohammedan
in his worship, including to our belief the worst
forms of theory and practice of any sect who ac-
knowledge God, has any warfare with his con-
science! Most assuredly not; he is doing what he
firmly believes and what his conscience tells him
is right The Hindu mother who sacrifices to her
religion her offspring, thing repugnant to all the
instincts of motherhood, does it simply because
her conscience tells her it is right Horrible tort
ure of body is suffered by the heather in their
worship for other purpose than to appease the
dictates of conscience.
Hundreds, might say, thousands of lives of all
sects, all religions have suffered tortures of body
and mind given up their lives freely at the stake.
at the block the scaffold happy if they could
thus give their lives sacrifice to their faith
and to what conscience told them right the
long roll of martyrs of all ages attest. Natural
incinations of men do not drive them to sacrifice
their lives for principles of right and wrong-they
must have some higher incentive.
That incentive is conscience. For illustration
in the deadly struggle between the North and
South. men of both sides freely gave up theil
lives, endured all the horrors Of hunger. thirst
disease and fatigue, toiling on Notifications