Our scientists, by the aid of powerful lenses, intense lights,
exquisite adjustments, have succeeded in rendering visible the
germs of several terrible maladies which decimate us, and these
ardent naturalists hope ultimately to discover germs still more
minute and obscure. But can any one believe that a bacteria
of immorality will ever be revealed by the microscope as the
germs of disease have been? Fever and cholera germs, germs of
consumption, hydrophobia, erysipelas, have been disclosed by
the fierce light of modern research; but no one will suppose
that the germs of intemperance, impurity, anger, covetousness,
deceit, pride, murder, foolishness, will ever be thrown on the
screen, and an antidote be found for them in the pharmacopoeia.
If it were thus possible to exhibit the secret of our sins, how
we should shudder at the sight of the naked human heart, and
shrink from the ghastly things which nestle there! But such a
spectacle is not possible, and we are sure that it never will
be. The germs of moral disease are in the soul itself; no glass
of science may make them visible, no physician may deal with
them, no medicine may purge them.--W. L. WATKINSON,
“The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
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