O.M. You needn’t mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter
about the bad boy’s act. Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting
reason for it. Otherwise you have been misinformed, and he didn’t do
it.
Y.M. It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man’s
conscience is not a born judge of morals and conduct, but has to be
taught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get drowsy and lazy,
but I don’t think it can go wrong; if you wake it up—
_A Little Story_
O.M. I will tell you a little story:
Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow
whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched
by the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these
opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature—that desire
which is in us all to better other people’s condition by having them
think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last
moments, reproached him and said:
“_I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and
my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the
things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I
have lost_.”
And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:
“_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do
this cruel thing? We have done you no harm, but only kindness; we made
our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our
reward.”_
The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done,
and he said:
“_It was wrong—I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In
my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth_.”
Then the mother said:
“_I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the
truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is
dead,—and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through
centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to
disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame_?”
Y.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death!
O.M. He thought so himself, and said so.
Y.M. Ah—you see, _his conscience was awakened_!
O.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It _pained_ him to see the mother
suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought _him_ pain. It
did not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the
boy, for he was absorbed in providing _pleasure_ for himself, then.
Providing it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.
Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of _awakened
conscience_. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that
species of trouble again. A cure like that is a _permanent_ cure.
O.M. Pardon—I had not finished the story. We are creatures of _outside
influences_—we originate _nothing_ within. Whenever we take a new line
of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse
is _always_ suggested from the _outside_. Remorse so preyed upon the
Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy’s religion and
made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the
boy’s sake and the mother’s. Finally he found himself examining it.
From that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He
became a believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the
dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It
gave him no rest, no peace. He _must_ have rest and peace—it is the law
of nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself
to saving imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan
country ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home
and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken
hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here
was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the
other boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his
foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy
in his last moments reproached him and said:
“_I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and
my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the
things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I
have lost_.”
And the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said:
“_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do
this cruel thing? We had done you no harm, but only kindness; we made
our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our
reward_.”
The heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had
done, and he said:
“_It was wrong—I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In
my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth_.”
Then the mother said:
“_I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the
truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is
dead—and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through
centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to
disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame_?”
The missionary’s anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as
bitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the
former case. The story is finished. What is your comment?
Y.M. The man’s conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn’t know
right from wrong.
O.M. I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that _one_ man’s
conscience doesn’t know right from wrong, it is an admission that there
are others like it. This single admission pulls down the whole doctrine
of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one
thing which I ask you to notice.
Y.M. What is that?
O.M. That in both cases the man’s _act_ gave him no spiritual
discomfort, and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure
out of it. But afterward when it resulted in _pain_ to _him_, he was
sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, _but for no reason
under the sun except that their pain gave him pain_. Our consciences
take _no_ notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point
where it gives pain to _us_. In _all_ cases without exception we are
absolutely indifferent to another person’s pain until his sufferings
make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled by
that Christian mother’s distress. Don’t you believe that?
Y.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the _average_ infidel, I think.
O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty,
would not have been troubled by the pagan mother’s distress—Jesuit
missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see
episodes quoted by Parkman.
Y.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?
O.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number
of qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate,
Charity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach
misleading _meanings_ to the names. They are all forms of
self-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them
that they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a
word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at
all—Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But
worst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which
dictates and compels a man’s every act: the imperious necessity of
securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it
we owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is
our only spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no
other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would
do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still.
We ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous
power is uttered.
Y.M. I am not convinced.
O.M. You will be when you think.