It is difficult to make so threadbare a commonplace at all impressive.
But yet if we would only take this thought, 'All the ways of a
man'--that is me--'are right in his own eyes'--that is, my eyes--and
apply it directly to our own personal experience and thoughts of
ourselves, we should find that, like every other commonplace of
morality and religion, the apparently toothless generality has sharp
enough teeth, and that the trite truth flashes up into strange beauty,
and has power to purify and guide our lives. Some one says that
'recognised truths lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by
side with exploded errors.' And I am afraid that that is true of this
thought, that we cannot truly estimate ourselves.
'All the ways of a man are right in his own eyes.' For to begin with,
we all know that there is nothing that we so habitually neglect as the
bringing of conscience to bear right through all our lives. Sometimes
it is because there is a temptation that appeals very strongly,
perhaps to sense, perhaps to some strong inclination which has been
strengthened by indulgence. And when the craving arises, that is no
time to begin asking, 'Is it right, or is it wrong to yield?' That
question stands small chance of being wisely considered at a moment
when, under the goading of roused desire, a man is like a mad bull
when it charges. It drops its head and shuts its eyes, and goes right
forward, and no matter whether it smashes its horns against an iron
gate, and damages them and itself, or not, on it will go. So when
great temptations rise--and we all know such times in our lives--we
are in no condition to discuss that question with ourselves. Sometimes
the craving is so vehement that if we could not get this thing that we
want without putting our hands through the sulphurous smoke of the
bottomless pit, we should thrust them out to grasp it. But in regard
to the smaller commonplace matters of daily life, too, we all know
that there are whole regions of our lives which seem to us to be so
small that it is hardly worth while summoning the august thought of
'right or wrong?' to decide them. Yes, and a thousand smugglers that
go across a frontier, each with a little package of contraband goods
that does not pay any duty, make a large aggregate at the year's end.
It is the trifles of life that shape life, and it is to them that we
so frequently fail in applying, honestly and rigidly, the test, 'Is
this right or wrong?' 'He that is faithful in that which is least,'
and conscientious down to the smallest things, 'is faithful also in
much.' The legal maxim has it, 'The law does not care about the very
smallest matters.' What that precisely means, as a legal maxim, I do
not profess to know, but it is rank heresy in regard to conduct and
morality. Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after
themselves. Get the habit of bringing conscience to bear on little
things, or you will never be able to bring it to bear when great
temptations come and the crises emerge in your lives. Thus, by reason
of that deficiency in the habitual application of conscience to bur
lives, we slide through, and take for granted that all our ways are
right in our eyes.
Then there is another thing: we not only neglect the rigid application
of conscience to all our lives, but we have a double standard, and the
notion of right and wrong which we apply to our neighbours is very
different from that which we apply to ourselves. No wonder that the
criminal is acquitted, and goes away from the tribunal 'without a
stain on his character,' when he is his own judge and jury. 'All the
ways of a man are right in his own eyes,' but the very same 'ways'
that you allow to pass muster and condone in yourselves, you visit
with sharp and unfailing censure in others. That strange
self-complacency which we have, which is perfectly undisturbed by the
most general confessions of sinfulness, and only shies when it is
brought up to particular details of faults, we all know is very deep
in ourselves.
Then there is another thing to be remembered, and that is--the
enormous and the tragical influence of habit in dulling the mirror of
our souls, on which our deeds are reflected in their true image. There
are places in Europe where the peasantry have become so accustomed to
minute and constantly repeated doses of arsenic that it is actually a
minister of health to them, and what would poison you is food for
them. We all know that we may sit in a hall like this, packed full and
steaming, while the condensed breath is running down the windows, and
never be aware of the foulness of the odours and the air. But when we
go out and feel the sweet, pure breath of the unpolluted atmosphere,
then we know how habit has dulled the lungs. And so habit dulls the
conscience. According to the old saying, the man that began by
carrying a calf can carry an ox at the end, and feel no burden. What
we are accustomed to do we scarcely ever recognise to be wrong, and it
is these things which pass because they are habitual that do more to
wreck lives than occasional outbursts of far worse evils, according to
the world's estimate of them. Habit dulls the eye.
Yes; and more than that, the conscience needs educating just as much
as any other faculty. A man says, 'My conscience acquits me'; then the
question is, 'And what sort of a conscience have you got, if it
acquits you?' All that your conscience says is, 'It is right to do
what is right, it is wrong to do what is wrong.' But for the
explanation of what is wrong and what is right you have to go
somewhere else than to your consciences. You have to go to your
reason, and your judgment, and your common sense, and a hundred other
sources. And then, when you have found out what is right and what is
wrong, you will hear the voice saying, 'Do that, and do not do this.'
Every one of us has faults that we know nothing about, and that we
bring up to the tribunal of our consciences, and wipe our mouths and
say, 'We have done no harm.' 'I thought within myself that I verily
ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.'
'They think that they do God service.' Many things that seem to us
virtues are vices.
And as for the individual so for the community. The perception of what
is right and what is wrong needs long educating. When I was a boy the
whole Christian Church of America, with one voice, declared that
'slavery was a patriarchal institution appointed by God.' The
Christian Church of to-day has not awakened either to the sin of war
or of drink. And I have not the smallest doubt that there are hosts of
things which public opinion, and Christian public opinion, regards
to-day as perfectly allowable and innocent, and, perhaps, even
praiseworthy, and over which it will ask God's blessing, at which, in
a hundred years our descendants will hold up their hands in wonder,
and say, 'How did good people--and good people they no doubt
were--tolerate such a condition of things for a moment?' 'All a man's
ways are right in his own eyes,' and he needs a great deal of teaching
before he comes to understand what, according to God's will, really,
is right and what is wrong.
Now let me turn for a moment to the contrasted picture, with which I
can only deal in a sentence or two.