The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-05-09
SOME RAMB11Na THOUGHTS.
Written for the Democratic Advocate,
BY MEMO.

Patient readers, have you ever met the
kind of individual who, after an action on
his part of great annoyance, perhaps dam
age, to his neighbor, his friend, or his
community, will calmly turn aside all criti-
cism by saying II merely followed my
conscience. The character is altogether
too common. Presumably he is sincere in
the excuse, but friends with such exasper-
ating conseiences are about as pleasant and
as safe to sojourn with as high-pressure
engine when the governor flies off A man
who bows down to blind, unreasoning con-
science, and makes it the standard of his
life is no better than an African fetish-wor-
shipper. He persistently makes his way to
his unholy shrine, though his path be filled
with the imploring hands Of those who
suffer and groan because of his misguided
purposes and self excusings. One is almost
tempted at times to believe that some men S
conscientious ways are nothing more than
stubbornness, and that the only way to
better them is to club new ideas into them
argun,ent,sm bdcutinun,. Conscience alone
is not an infallible guide for conduct.
Surely it has often occurred in your
school experience, that after making some
particularly bold statement, your teacher
brought you to sudden halt by demand
ing, ssGive an instance . The old domi-
ME who instilled into me much respect for
good English and still more respect for
the lissom and entwining qualities of his
cane, used to tell fairly good story just
along this line. A boy, one of those
eager yet laundering rascals that all of us
love, had rashly declared that there were
eight leases in Latin. After much
houndering through the six that we all
probably know, he made ready to cry
excellent diversion when cOrnered Mark
that, We DANES and misses that cannot
argue Though where is there one p
and blurted out There's sword case
anyhow Caesar carried one Seven,
said the memorable teacher The poor
youngster, who was certainly not lacking
in humor, then boo-hooed outright and
managed between sobs to say, There s
my-Own case and-that's the worst case
of ALL -
So you have a right to demand severa
confrmatory instances, showing half in
formed or misguided conscience to be al
unsafe guide The writer is unfortunately
like bewildered child in toy shop; ther'
are so many different things, that it il
hard to know which one to take first.
Go to Hindostan. There the profes
sional strangers, the people from whom
we gain our word s.thug," would. from
purely religious motives, cut short you
career on earth with no qualms of conscienc'
at all; in fact, their consciences would NOR,
likely trouble them if they allowed you t,
escape the honor of being principal acto
in sacrifice to the goddess Kali. Thei
own medicine has cured them and thei
consciences have been enlightened by shor
shrift and slightly longer ropes.
Turn to Hindostan again. To the smok
ing funeral pyres of untold numbers Of
men have untold mourning widows beer
dragged, that together the man and wife
might be consumed and travel to Nirvana,
the land of forgetfulness The Hindoc
conscience was positively sure the woman :
only hope of pleasantly quiet time in the
hereafter was to travel thither with hei
husband. But the British government
has for long time called the rite of ''Sut-
tee plain, ordinary murder, and the Hin
doc conscience has awakened to the idea
that the widow ought to live.
'sOh, conscience, what crimes are oft
committed in thy name. Conscience
excuses the Dyaks of Borneo as they prowl
hither and thither seeking to ornament
their homes with the skulls of men, Con-
science justifes the Dahomeyans, when
the King dies, in filling great trenches
with the quivering bodies of hundreds,
even thousands, of women and of animals,
so that the great feshly brute may not
want for care and comfort in the s'Some-
where or Another that he is supposed to
enter. Conscience mods approval at the
feasts of cannibals, and at the self -tortures
of heather devotees. 1t drove Judas
Iseariot, wretched money -grabber, to carry
out the bad bargain he had made. 1t did
not trouble Nero with single twinge as
he used the oil-saturated Christians fol-
fambeaux. Were they not the enemies
of the gods of his ancestors and did they
not believe in an empire other than his
own? So he hoisted them up and burned
them as a sacrifice, hardly sweet smelling,
perhaps, yet nevertheless eminently salts
factory, in his judgment, to his Lares and
Penates. Conscience smiled with kind
impartiality upon the tortures of the Inqui-
sition, the sufferings of the Coyenanters,
the prosecutions of the Lollards. If one
spiritual quality can combine in itself al
the opposite qualities of matter, extensible
as sail, stretchable as rubber, tough al
rhinoceros hide, indurated as yulcanite
that quality is an unenlightened conscience.
Conscience led the settlers of Massachu.
sets to seek place where they could wor-
ship God according to its dictates, and the
same extraordinary and reversible menta
attitude justified them in heaping indigni-
ties upon the Quakers and in resolving
witches into ashes and smoke Conscience
carried Benedict Arnold through intense
sufferings in the Maine wilderness on behalf
of our country, and then by its adaptability
made him feel certain shame in with
drawing from the scandalous bargain he
had made with the British He had prom
ised to deliver; he tried to do it. Con
science gave no trouble to the Massachu,
sets distillers, who in the early years Of
the century would give largely to foreign
missions and fill the cabins of the ships
with earnest servants of God, while the
hold was distent with rum Conscience
did not prevent good church members fifty
years or less ago from kneeling before tn,
Lord, their maker, and then leaving t.
traffic in his ebonized image Thes,
American comments are written to save vi
from condemning the Dyaks, the Hindoos
the cannibals. There are weeds in oul
own front yards; let us not worry too much