The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-08-22
POOLING WITH THE CONSCIENCE

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POOLING WITH THR CONSCIENCE
Alexander Maclaren.
Sin does not usually march up to the
fortress that it would capture with
flags flying and drums beating, but it
burrows underground and comes up
in the citadel before the garrison
knows that it is near. Most Of us,
when we do wrong, do it ignoring al
together the right or wrong Of the
thing we are going to do, and some
times we go 80 far that we persuade
ourselves that there is no reason why
we should not do this. All, yesl the
arrow that hieth in darkness" is the
arrow to be afraid of. The pestilence
that walketh in darkness" is the pes
tiIence that Stays its tens of thousands
The first lie that she tells me is, Come
along, there is not q bit Of harm in it.
You may Go it quite s ifely. / will not
say it is right, but certainly it is not
wrong. Comet
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with you coneciences in the way of
getting them to condone or to sane
ton evil except this one thing which
nobody can do-you a never get
conscience to say, 1T is right to do
wrong" But you can get it to say
that almcss anything in the whole pos
sible circle of vices and sins is right if
you go the right way to work about it.
Conscience can he scared, as a mans
skin will be no longer sensitive after
once a hot iron has been pressed
against it. You can silence that voice
by neglectiDg it; you q silence it,
ard bring it down to the level of your
ordinary life by habitual indulgence
in certain forms of evil, as the "dyer's
hand is subdued to what it works in, "
and colored like the stufs that it is
daily handling. So conscience is not
to be absolutely trusted, buEmay think
many things to be right which are
wrong, and 80 we have to take it to
God, and get him to educate it. Do
not rely absolutely on conscience VI
less it has been taught by the word
and by the example of Jesus Christ.
And do not rely on your inclinations
to decide what is right, because they
are, in nine cases out Of ten, bribed
beforehand by the enemy.
It is all but impossible for a man so
to get away from hims III as to look at
himself, and see himself as he is, and
so you know we have got two words
for almost every kind of moral action,
and we use n of them for other PEG
pie when they do it, and one Of them
for ourselves when we do it. THAT
man is a miser; " II am prudently
careful" That one is mean and
shifty and cunning; " 81 am sagacious
and edapt means to ends, and do not
wear my heart on my sleeve" This
man is passionate " I am fright,
eously indignant" That other man
''indulges inthe appetites of the flesh; )"
I simply do not go over to the ex
treme of asceticism."
What in the captain Chat is in me)
is but q choleric word, in the soldier
Chat is, everybody elsel IS fat bias
phemy." And 50 the hardest of all
things is to get people to know them
selves. The Assyrians had a notion
which is emb )died in some of their
strange cuneiform tablets, that if a
demon once SAW his face in a mirror,
he fed inc~ontinently from the spot. II
we could see ourselves-I was going to
quote the hackneyed old words-''as
othhers see u.s." if we could see our
selves in Gods mirror, then we should
be delivered from the lies of sin, as to
its guilt or criminality. Strange that
it should be 81 diff cult for us to know
ourselves, and that it should be true
about all what one Of the old prophets
says about idolaters {: "a deceived
heart hath turned him aside, b a he
cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is
there not q lie in my right handE'