s
greatest dramas are studies of conscience and of duty. The
masterpieces of Sophocles and AEschylus, of Dante and Milton, of Goethe
and Byron, are all studies of the soul's oracle, that, disobeyed,
hurls man into the abyss, or, followed, becomes wings, lifting him
into the open sky.

Demosthenes said that knowledge begins with definition. What, then, is
conscience? Many misconceptions have prevailed. Multitudes suppose it
to be a distinct faculty. The eye tests colors for beauty, the ear
tests sounds for harmony, the reason tests arguments for truth, and
there is a popular notion that conscience is a distinct faculty,
testing deeds for morality. Many suppose that, when God made man, He
implanted conscience as an automatic moral mechanism, a kind of inner
mind, to act in his absence; but conscience is not a single faculty.
It includes many faculties, and is complex in nature. It has an
intellectual element, and this is distinctly fallible and capable of
education. Witness the Indians, believing it to be right to kill aged
persons. Witness savages of old, sacrificing their children to appease
the gods. Just as there has been an evolution in tools, in laws and in
institutions, so has there been an evolution of the intellectual
element in conscience. Thucydides tells us that the time was in Sparta
when stealing was right. In that far-off time a boy was praised for
exhibiting skill and dexterity in pilfering. Stealing was disgraceful
and wrong only when it was found out, and, if the theft was large and
skillfully done, it won honor--a condition of things that still
prevails in some sections.

Never since man stepped foot upon this planet has there been a time
when conscience, the judge, has praised a David when sinning against
what he believed to be the law of right; never once has it condemned a
Daniel in doing what he believed to be right. In this sense conscience
is, indeed, infallible and is the very voice and regent of God.

Since, therefore, conscience partakes of this divine nature and speaks
as an oracle, what are its uses and functions? Primarily, the moral
sense furnishes a standard and tests actions for righteousness or
iniquity. To its judgment-seat comes reason, with its purposes and
ambitions. When his color sense is jaded the artist uses the sapphire
or ruby to bring his tints up to perfection. And when contact with
selfishness or sordidness has soiled the soul's garments, dulled its
instruments, and lowe