CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
We come now to the greatest and noblest of the Moral Powers of Man; to
that power which makes him quite a different order of being from any
other that we know of, and which is the glory and crown of his
existence:--his Conscientiousness. The universal endowment of men with
this power is the true bond of brotherhood of the human race. Any race
of beings who possess in common the highest quality of which any of them
are capable, are brothers, however much they may differ in all other
respects, and however little some of them may care about this
brotherhood. For those who do care about it, how clear it is, and how
very interesting to trace! How plain it is that while men in different
parts and ages of the world differ widely as to what is right, they all
have something in them which prompts them to do what they believe to be
right! Here is a little boy, permitted to try what he can get by selling
five shillings' worth of oranges:--he points out to the lady who is
buying his last half dozen, that two of them are spotted.--There was
Regulus, the Roman general, who was taken prisoner by the enemy, the
Carthaginians. He was trusted to go to Rome, to treat for an exchange of
prisoners, on his promise that he would return to Carthage,--which he
knew was returning to death,--if the Roman senate would not grant an
exchange of prisoners. He persuaded the Roman senate _not_ to agree to
the exchange, which he believed would not be for the advantage of Rome:
and then he went back to Carthage and to death. There is, at this day,
the South Sea Islander,--the young wife who has been told that it is
pious and right to give her first child to the gods. She has in her all
a mother's feelings, all the love which women long to lavish on their
first babe: but she desires that the infant should be strangled as soon
as born, because she thinks it her duty. Now, this poor creature is
truly the sister of the other two, though her superstition is horrible,
and the infanticide it leads to is a great crime. She is shockingly
ignorant, and her mind is not of that high order which would perceive
that there must be something wrong in going against nature in this way:
but, for all that, she is conscientious; and by her conscientiousness
she is truly a sister in heart to the honourable Roman general, and the
honest orange-seller. What she needs is knowledge: and what the whole
human race wants is knowledge, to bring the workings of this great power
into harmony all over the world. At present, we see men in one place
feeding, and in another place burning one another,--because they think
they ought. In one place, we see a man with seventy wives,--in another,
a man with one wife,--and in another, a man remaining a bachelor all his
life; and each one equally supposing that he is doing what is right. The
evil everywhere is in the want of clear views of what is right. This is
an evil which may and will be remedied, we may hope, in course of ages.
There is nothing that we may not hope while the power to desire and do
what is right is common to all mankind,--is given to them as an
essential part of the human frame.
It does not follow, of course, that this power is equal in all. All but
idiots have it, more or less; but it varies, in different individuals,
quite as much as any other power. No power is more dependant on care and
cultivation for its vigour: but none varies more from the very
beginning. Some of the worst cases of want of rectitude that I have
known have been in persons so placed as that everybody naturally
supposed they _must_ be good, and trusted them accordingly. I have known
a girl, brought up by highly principled relatives, in a house where
nothing but good was seen or heard of, turn out so faulty as to compel
one to see that her power of conscientiousness was the weakest she had.
She had some of it. She was uneasy,--truly and not hypocritically,--if
she did not read a portion of the bible every day at a certain hour. She
was plain, even to prudery, in her dress: she truly honoured old age,
and could humble herself before it: and she studiously, and from a sense
of duty, administered to the wishes of the elder members of the family,
in all matters of arrangement and manners. But that was all. She was
tricky to a degree I could never estimate or comprehend. Her little
plots and deceptions were without number and without end. Her temper was
bad, and she took no pains whatever to mend it, but spent all her
exertions in making people as miserable as possible by her
vindictiveness. In love matters, she reached a point of malice beyond
belief, torturing people's feelings, and getting them into scrapes, with
a gratification to her own bad mind which could not be concealed under
her demure solemnity of manner. Enough of her! I will only observe that,
though she was brought up by good people, it does not follow that she
was judiciously managed. The result shows that she was not. A perfectly
wise guardian would have seen that her faculty of conscientiousness
wanted strengthening, and would have found safe and innocent employment
for those powers of secretiveness and defiance, and that inordinate love
of approbation, which, as it was, issued in mischief-making.--The
opposite case to hers is that which touches one with a deeper pity than
almost any spectacle which can be seen on this earth: that of the child
whose strong power of conscientiousness is directed to wickedness,
before it has ability to help itself. Think of the little child born in
a cellar, among thieves! It is born full of human powers; and among
these, it has a conscience, and perhaps a particularly strong one.
Suppose it is brought up to believe that its duty is to provide money
for its parents by stealing. Suppose that, by five years old, it
entirely believes that the most wrong thing it can do is to come home at
dark without having stolen at least three pocket-handkerchiefs! Such
cases have been known; and not a few of them.--And it is only an
exaggerated instance of what we very commonly see in history and the
world. The Chief Inquisitor in Spain or Italy really believed that he
was doing his duty in burning the bodies of heretics for the good of
their souls. Our ancestors thought they were acting benevolently in
putting badge dresses on charity children. The Pharisees of old were
sincere in their belief that it was wrong to heal a sick man on the
Sabbath. And I have no doubt that in a future age it will appear that we
ourselves are ignorant and mistaken about some points of our conduct in
which we now sincerely believe that we are doing what we ought.
In every household, then, the first consideration is to cherish the
faculty of conscientiousness; and the next is, to direct it wisely.
When I speak of cherishing the faculty, I do not mean that it is always
to be stimulated, whether it be naturally strong or weak. There are
cases, and they are not few, where the power is stronger than perhaps
any other. In such cases, no stimulating is required, but only guidance
and enlightenment. There are few sadder spectacles than that of a
suffering being whose conscience has become so tender as to be
superstitious; who lives a life of fear--of incessant fear of doing
wrong. It is a healthy conscience that we want to produce; a conscience
which shall act naturally, vigorously, and incessantly, like an
instinct; so as to leave all the other faculties to act freely, without
continual conflict and question whether their action be right or wrong.
A child who is perpetually driven to examine all he thinks and does will
become full of himself, prone to discontent with himself, and to servile
dependence on the opinion of those whom he thinks wiser than himself.
What is such a child to do when he comes out into the world, and must
guide himself? At best, he will go trembling through life, without
courage or self-respect: and something worse is to be apprehended. It is
to be apprehended that if he makes any slip--and such an one will be
sure to think that he does make slips--he will be unable to bear the
pain and uncertainty, and will grow reckless. A clergyman, of wide and
deep experience, who was the depository of much confidence, told me once
(and I have never forgotten it), that some of the worst cases of
desperate vice he had ever known were those of young men tenderly and
piously reared, who came out from home anxious about the moral dangers
of the world and the fears of their parents, and who, having fallen into
the slightest fault, and being utterly wretched in consequence, lost all
courage and hope, and drowned their misery in indulgence of the worst
part of themselves. He felt this so strongly that he solemnly conjured
me to use any influence I might ever have over parents in encouraging
them to trust their children with their innocence, and to have faith in
the best faculties of human nature. This entreaty still rings in my
ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.
Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in
well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the
eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the
understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and
gratification, if it have fair play? Is it not true that pain of
conscience is the worst of human sufferings? and that this pain will be
naturally avoided, like every other pain, if only the faculty have fair
play?
The worst of it is, the faculty seldom has fair play. The fatal notion
that human beings are more prone to evil than inclined to good, and the
fatal practice of creating factitious sins, are dreadfully in the way of
natural health of conscience. Teach a child that his nature is evil, and
you will make it evil. Teach him to fear and despise himself, and you
will make him timid and suspicious. Impose upon him a number of
factitious considerations of duty, and you will perplex his moral sense,
and make him tired of a self-government which has no certainty and no
satisfaction in it. It is a far safer and higher way to trust to his
natural moral sense, and cultivate his moral taste: to let him grow
morally strong by leaving him morally free, and to make him, by sympathy
and example, in love with whatever things are pure, honest, and lovely.
What the parent has to do with is the moral habits of the child, and not
to meddle with his faculties. Give them fair scope to grow, and they
will flourish: and, let it be remembered, man has no faculties which
are, in themselves and altogether, evil. His faculties are all good, if
they are well harmonised. Instead of talking to him, or leading him to
talk in his infancy of his own feelings as something that he has to take
charge of, fix his mind on the things from which his feelings will of
themselves arise. By all means, lead him to be considerate: but not
about his own state, but rather about the objects which cause that
state. If he sees at home integrity entering into every act and thought,
and trust and love naturally ensuing, he will enjoy integrity and live
in it, as the native of a southern climate enjoys sunshine and lives in
it. If, as must happen, failure of integrity comes under his notice in
one direction or another, he will see the genuine disgust and pain which
those about him feel at the spectacle, and dishonesty will be disgusting
and painful to him. And so on, through all good and bad qualities of
men. And this will keep him upright and pure far more certainly than any
warnings from you that he will be dishonest and impure, unless he is
constantly watching his feelings, and striving against the danger.
In the beginning of his course, he must be aided,--in the early days
when the action of all his faculties is weak and uncertain: and this aid
cannot be given too early; for we are not aware of any age at which a
child has not some sense of moral right and wrong. Mrs. Wesley taught
her infants in arms to "cry softly." Without admiring the discipline, we
may profit by the hint as to the moral capability of the child. When no
older than this, he may have satisfaction, without knowing why, from
submitting quietly to be washed, and to go to bed. When he becomes
capable of employing himself purposely, he may have satisfaction in
doing his business before he goes to his play, and a sense of uneasiness
in omitting the duty. I knew a little boy in petticoats who had no
particular taste for the alphabet, but began to learn it as a matter of
course, without any pretence of relish. One day his lesson was, for some
reason, rather short. His conscience was not satisfied. When his elder
brother was dismissed, Willie brought his letters again, but found he
was not wanted, and might play. The little fellow sighed; and then a
bright thought struck him. (I think I see him now, in his white frock,
with his large thoughtful eyes lighting up!) He said joyfully--"Willie
say his lesson to hisself." He carried his little stool into a corner,
put his book on his knees, and finished by honestly covering up the
large letters with both hands, and saying aloud two or three new ones.
Then he went to his play, all the merrier for the discharge of his
conscience.
There is no reason why it should not be thus with all the duties of a
child. The great point is that he should see that the peace and joy of
the household depend on ease of conscience. His father takes no pleasure
till his work is done, and tells the truth to his hurt. His mother seeks
to be just to a slandered neighbour, or leaves her rest by the fireside
to aid a sick one. Granny's eyes sparkle, or a flush comes over her
withered cheek, when she tells the children what good men have endured
rather than pretend what they did not believe, or betray a trust. The
maid has taken twopence too much in change, and is uneasy till she has
returned it, or she refuses to promise something, lest she should be
unable to keep her word. His elder sister refuses something good at a
neighbour's, because her mother would think it unwholesome while she is
not quite well. His elder brother asks him to throw just a little cold
water upon him in the mornings, because he is so terribly sleepy that he
cannot get up without. And he sees what a welcome is given to a very
poor acquaintance, and he feels his own heart beat with reverence for
this very poor neighbour, because his father happens to know that the
man refused five pounds for his vote at the last election. If the child
is surrounded by a moral atmosphere like this, he will derive a strong
moral life from it, and a satisfaction to his highest moral faculties
which it is scarcely possible that he should forego for the pleasures of
sin. The indolent child will, in such a home, lose all idea of pleasure
in being idle, and soon find no pleasure till his work is done. The
slovenly child will become uneasy under a dirty skin, and the
thoughtless one in being behind his time. Common integrity we may
suppose to be a matter of course in a household like this; and, as every
virtuous faculty naturally advances "from strength to strength," we may
hope that the abode will be blessed, as the children grow up, with a
very uncommon integrity.
Though the parent will avoid making the child unnecessarily conscious of
its own conscience, she (for this is chiefly the mother's business) will
remember that her child has his difficulties and perplexities about the
working of this, as of all his other imperfectly trained powers; and she
will lay herself open to his confidence. Sometimes he is not clear what
he ought to do: sometimes he feels himself too weak to do it: sometimes
he is miserable because he has done wrong: and then again, he and some
one else may differ as to whether he has done wrong or right. And again,
he may have seen something in other people's conduct which shocks, or
puzzles, or delights him. Oh! let the mother throw open her heart to
confidences like these! Let her be sure that the moments of such
confidence are golden moments, for which a mother may be more thankful
than for anything else she can ever receive from her child. Let it be
her care that every child has opportunity to speak freely and privately
to her of such things. Some mothers make it a practice to go themselves
to fetch the candle when the children are in bed; and then, if wanted,
they stay a few minutes, and hear any confessions, or difficulties, and
receive any disclosures, of which the little mind may wish to disburden
itself before the hour of sleep. Whether then or at another time, it is
well worth pondering what a few minutes of serious consultation may do
in enlightening and rousing or calming the conscience,--in rectifying
and cherishing the moral life. It may be owing to such moments as these
that humiliation is raised into humility, apathy into moral enterprise,
pride into awe, and scornful blame into Christian pity. Happy is the
mother who can use such moments as she ought!
There remains, after all, the dread and wonder what such children are to
think and do when they must come to know what is the average
conscientiousness of the world. This is a subject of fear and pain to
most good parents. But they must consider that their children will not
see the world as they do all at once:--not till they have learned, like
their parents, to allow for, and account for, what happens in the world.
The innocent and the upright put a good construction on as much as
possible of what they see; and are often more right in this than their
clearer-sighted elders who know more of the tendencies of things. The
shock will not come all at once. They hear now of broken contracts,
dishonest bargains, venal elections, mercenary marriages, and, perhaps,
profligate seductions. They know that there are drunkards, and cheats,
and hypocrites, and cruel brutes, in society: and these things hardly
affect them, are hardly received by them, because they are surrounded by
honest people, and cannot feel what is beyond. And when they must become
more truly aware of these things, they will still trust in and admire
some whom they look up to, with more or less reason. The knowledge of
iniquity will come to them gradually, and all the more safely the less
sympathy they have with it.
If it be the pain, and not the danger, of this knowledge that the
parents dread, they must make up their minds to it for their children.
Surely they do not expect them to go through life without pain: and a
bitter suffering it will be to them to see what wretchedness is in the
world through the vices and ignorance of men; through their want of
conscientiousness, or their errors of conscience. Such pain must be met
and endured; and who is likely to meet it so bravely, and endure it so
hopefully, as those who are fully aware that every man's heaven or hell
is within him--giving a hope that heaven will expand as wisdom
grows--and who carry within themselves that peace which the world "can
neither give nor take away?"