Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/115

115

CONSCIENCE.

Will it see when thou art blind ? Will it speak, ad-
monish, punish, otherwise than thou wiliest, as if it were
no part of thee, and that, when thou pointest only to
thyself as the fountain from which it is to draw its wis-
dom ? To expect this, is to ask that thou shouldst
contradict and vanquish thyself, shouldst demand light
from darkness, strength from weakness, and an answer
from the question. There must be something without,
at which we may gaze as at a fixed polar star, a light
that is raised above the misty clouds of this world ; not
a sign of our own painting to indicate what we believe
to be the right road, but one set up by Him whose word
is a "lamp to our feet and a light to our path." The
holy will of the Father of light must be made known
to us. Otherwise we live as in a land of revolution,
where the old government is abolished and a new one
not yet re-established ; where every one consults his
own views and inclinations as to what he shall do, or
omit to do ; where one becomes a murderer with the
best conscience, and another with an equally good
one takes the booty to himself. It is not because men
act without conscience, that the pile of the martyrs is
kindled, and the guillotine erected ; but because they
have forgotten the commandment of God, "Thou shalt
not kill !" and have made their own opinions and wishes
the law of conscience. He does not live against his
conscience, to whom the gratification of earthly desires,
activity in temporal affairs, and the pleasant enjoyment
of worldly peace, arc every thing ; to whom the heavens
are never opened by a look of devotion, whose heart is
never moved by an inquiry after Divine things, the sanc-
tification of whose heart and conduct does not lie before