creed be taught, or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God."
--_Byron._

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of
celestial fire called conscience."--_Washington._

"Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in
everything."--_Sterne._

"If you can find a place between the throne of God and
the dust to which man's body crumbles, where the fatal
responsibilities of law do not weigh upon him, I will
find a vacuum in nature. They press upon him from God out
of eternity and from the earth out of nature, and from
every department of life, as constant and all-surrounding
as the pressure of the air."--_Beecher._

IX

CONSCIENCE AND CHARACTER

Von Humboldt said that every man, however good, has a yet better man
within him. When the outer man is unfaithful to his deeper
convictions, the hidden man whispers a protest. The name of this
whisper in the soul is conscience. And never had monarch aspect so
magisterial as when conscience terrified King Herod into confession.
The cruel, crafty despot had slain John the Baptist to gratify the
revenge of the beautiful Jezebel, his wife, reproved of John for her
outrageous sins. But soon passed from memory that hateful night when
the blood of a good man mingled with the red wine of the feast. Luxury
by day and revelry by night caused the hateful incident to be
forgotten. Soon a full year had passed over the palace with its silken
seclusion. One day, when the dead prophet had long been forgotten, a
courtier at the king's table told the story of a strange carpenter,
whose name and fame were ringing through the land.

Who is He? asked the feasters, pausing over their spiced wine. Who is
He? asked the women, gossiping over the new sensation. Suddenly,
conscience touched an old memory in Herod's heart. In terror the
despot rose from the banquet. As in the legend, when the murderer's
finger touched the gaping wound the blood began again to flow--a
silent witness against the unsuspected but guilty friend, so Herod's
conscience opened up again his guilty secret. Memory, thrusting a
hooked pole into "the ocean of oblivion, brought up the pale and
drowned deed." The long-forgotten sin was revealed in all its ghastly
atrocity. It availed nothing that Herod was a Sadducee--the agnostic
of antiquity. For, when conscience spake, all his doubts fell away.
Im