Conversation With Conscience

Every man should have a frequent conversation with his conscience. Conscience is an excellent counselor if it hasn’t been tampered with too much. Of course it is to be admitted that an active conscience can be very inconvenient. It sometimes interferes with some of the things people think they want to do, which conscience tells them they ought not to do. And so many men make the mistake of trying to talk down their conscience. Sometimes they do talk it down. They do small things to which they cannot give inward approval. Then conscience begins to talk, and they begin to talk back. And it sometimes becomes a question of who is going to listen to whom. And if they are persistent enough to quiet their conscience on some small matter, there then may follow something a little more serious, and a little more talking back to conscience. Thus the degree of offense may be ever increased. By this progressive process there is almost nothing in which we cannot justify ourselves if we deliberately set about to blind our inward eyes. By this process we can crowd conscience into a corner on almost any issue, for the moment at least, by telling ourselves only one side of the story. But, when a man tries to out-argue his conscience, one of two or three things may happen: either conscience becomes more acute and finally wins its way; or he may silence it for awhile, or seem to do so, until it begins to talk back with added vengeance; or he may persist to the point of wearing callouses on his conscience to the point where it becomes dull and unresponsive. But when conscience becomes dull, so do other sensibilities. Increasing callousness of conscience means increasing callousness of spirit, and that means knowing less and less of the sweet and simple pleasures and the finer feelings of life. Conscience is a safety device, and when we tamper with safety devices, we give an open invitation to trouble and to tragedy, to misery and remorse. When a man thinks he is winning against conscience, actually he is losing.