VI

SUBSTITUTE FOR CONSCIENCE:

C

OTHER PEOPLE'S CONSCIENCE

ONSCIENCE becomes degenerate and ceases to be an incentive by having substituted for it some standard of duty other than one's own persuasion. It is bad enough to have another man or set of men outside of you control your actions. That is slavery. It is worse to have another man or set of men control you from the inside: to think thoughts as others may dictate, without the exercise of rational judgment on your own part, and to be set on fire with motives and passions such as others may choose to kindle on your moral hearthstone. That is worse than slavery: it is the destruction of manhood. The only free man is he who forms his own principles, and then voluntarily conforms himself to them. He mines their substance indeed in the rich field of God's righteousness, but the veins gleam in his own moral sense. If he has learned these principles from others in early education, it is only as a newcomer learns the location of a lode from former prospectors. He insists on assaying his moral metal himself by meditation, or else demands that the "sterling mark"

of heaven be indubitable. Such a man is independent; as he who travels with his own money, and has need neither to beg nor to borrow.

Epictetus was the slave of Epaphroditus, and Epaphroditus was the slave of Nero: but Epictetus was really freer than the Emperor whose servant he served. Hear him. 'Master says, 'I will fetter you.' I reply, 'What do you say, man? Fetter me? You will fetter my leg, but not Zeus himself can get the better of my free will.' So the slave of a slave became the philosopher of liberty, just as Paul became the Apostle of liberty when he gave us that ringing command, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

You

Conscience and consciousness have the same etymology. They both mean "knowing with or within one's self." Conscience is consciousness applied to morals. Until one feels in the depth of his own soul that a thing is right, though he may happen to be in the right, he is not conscientiously so, because not consciously so. would not be Paul's ideal of a man even if you believed and did all he taught, simply because he said so, any more than to accurately copy a painting is to be a great painter. Peter was doubtless more Paul-like when the one withstood the other to his face, than if either had obsequiously taken the other for a perfect model. How grandly Paul swung himself into independence of character,

cutting loose from the tradition of his fathers, from the leading strings of his home education; from his university cult, at the feet of Gamaliel; and, harder still to accomplish, from his own past, breaking with that sense of consistency which even strong men drag behind them, as a ship might drag a fastened rudder! Paul yielded his judgment and life to Jesus, but not until the light from that Divine face shot its persuasion through his mind,—and then he followed Jesus, still in absolute independence because the Master's mind had become his own. Lord says that His yoke is easy and His burden light, because His will becomes ours. It is such a yoke and burden as wings are to a dove, a part of herself. Our Lord's full conquest of souls is pictured in the book of Revelation. Redeemed men cast their crowns at His feet, that is their highest, most royal act of free will. My Christian conscience is literally con-scio,-what I know within myself; for "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

Our

There are, however, men with other men's consciences, like the slave-master's rope, dragging them singly or in bands. There, for example, is the Jesuit whose will is broken, as is that of the horse, by the discipline of his Order, until he is dead to himself and alive only to his General. Ignatius Loyola seems to have taken his clew from Kara Khalil Tschendereli, the Turk, who

devised the similar system of the Janizaries, an organization of captive Christian boys, who were transmuted into Moslem enthusiasts for the destruction of the faith in which they were born, as the cubs of chetahs are trained to hunt down their kind.

Our English word "assassin" was originally the title of a murderous band of Moslems who frenzied themselves with hasheesh (Arabic, hashishin), and obeyed the "Old Man of the Mountain," as a dagger follows the hand of the holder. It was the boast of their leader that a literal dagger point touched the heart of every ruler in the world, to enter it whenever this monster should command. These Assassins thought they were saints of Allah while acting like devils; as the Indian Thugs who spring at one from the bush, or poison his food, deem themselves the direct agents of the divine Seva.

A bigot differs from these in that, laying aside his conscience, he substitutes the rule of his sect instead of any single Director. The word "bigot" is presumed to be a corruption of " By God!" Paul was a bigot and thought he was 'doing God's service," when, as deeper selfknowledge revealed, he was only following the conventional code of the Scribes and Pharisees.

66

The word "hypocrite" is given in the lexicons as a secondary meaning of “bigot.” We are

accustomed to think a hypocrite one who deliberately acts out a lie. As our Lord used the word it did not imply purposeful dishonesty. The Pharisees whom He condemned would prove their sincerity by going to death rather than break a law of their sect. They would pay the last "tithe of mint, anise, and cummin" with their last drop of blood, though they would not give the first drop of blood for real "judgment, mercy, and faith." Thus we learn that sincerity is not necessarily conscientiousness.

"Is this really the skull of Saint

66

?" we

asked the cicerone of an Italian cathedral. He replied, Credo,"-this with an uplifted countenance denoting positive conviction and a militant intent to defend it. In a moment, however, he added, as if talking to himself, "Who am I to dispute it?"—this with the look of pious humility that would have fitted the face of the Penitent Thief. Then he turned away with a shrug of the shoulders, muttering, "Besides, it is easier." Reverse this order and we have the making of the ordinary bigot, either conservative or liberal. He begins with "It is easier"; mental inability or laziness tires of inquiry. Then he makes a virtue of his fault, calling it reverence for authority-" Why should I dispute it?" another way of resting, on one's knees. Finally he is ready to fight-shall we say for his faith? or is it only for the comfort of his priedieu? But let us not