schools became noted, not only for the high-grade scholarship of the boys sent to college, but, what signified far more, for their manly qualities. We had been trying to follow Sunday afternoon Bible lesson. When the hour was half up the Doctor said, " Boys, I want you to do something for yourselves which will help you more than I can. Please go to your rooms and spend the remainder of the hour in just thinking. Think who and what you are, and what you are going to do about it. Listen to your own heart-beats for a while:-I mean your conscience. No matter what you want to be: no matter what you have been; let each one try to say 'I am going to be just right.' To your rooms, boys, and God bless you!" The result of that think was the 66 Christian consecration of several of the class, hitherto the most heedless. X INCENTIVES FROM A LIFE PURPOSE C ONSCIENCE is the judge of conduct: not its director. Lack of evil intention will not redeem a life from failure through lack of intelligent choice of a proper course and equally intelligent persistence in pursuing it. Indeed one's goodness itself is precarious if one is not actively engaged in some scheme of usefulness which engages the energies, as a ship that is making no headway, though headed right, will drift at the mercy of wind or tide. We may compare right principles to the constitution of our country. Conscience sits as Supreme Court, approving or denouncing according as the separate acts of conduct are to be allowed or forbidden. Intelligence legislates, while the Will is Chief Executive of the life. It matters little that the Judge's ermine be unstained if the Legislature be foolish or the Executive inert. Dante observed that Italy in his day had inherited all the excellence of Roman law since the days of Justinian, but that the country was going to the dogs because the people had no national ideal and no spirit of united and continuous enterprise. |