The Best Tranquilizer…

Somewhere we have this short incisive sentence: “The best tranquilizer is a clear conscience.”

Some troubles come by accident or illness or misfortune (or from the faithlessness of others). But as to those troubles which men bring on inside themselves, often they come because someone has tried some kind of short-cut—because someone has supposed that the laws of God, the laws men, the laws of self-respect, the laws of society can easily be set aside without adverse affect.

And sometimes those who so proceed tell themselves why what they shouldn’t do isn’t really so serious—because aren’t the commandments and conventions old-fashioned after all—or isn’t what others are doing really much worse?

And so there is a kind of rationalizing which seeks to nullify facts: Seldom does a thief say, I am a thief. Seldom does anyone say, I am unfaithful. Too seldom does the doer of wrong tell himself the truth—at least not at first.

But sooner or later there comes awareness within that the commandments are basic laws of life which men must keep if they are to live peaceably together, or at peace inside themselves. So basic are they to the very nature of man that in a sense they enforce themselves, as suggested in a sentence from Elbert Hubbard who said: “Men are punished by their sins, not for them.”

There are many laws in life which in this sense are self-enforcing. The Lord God

Hasn’t simply arbitrarily said thou shalt not. He knows us. He knows our nature. He knows what will make us happy or unhappy, what will help or impede our progress—and this isn’t something that someone has merely supposed.

But blessedly there is the principle of repentance, and blessedly God forgives upon evidence of sincere repentance—not merely for superficially saying I am sorry, and repeating old errors, but the kind of repentance in which a man says in his soul inside of himself, “I will turn away from what I shouldn’t do,” and than does what he should do.

And just because we may have gone one step down a wrong road is no reason why we have to take two. The only sound and peaceful way to live is to face facts, to keep the commandments, to do our best to be what we should be, and not to rationalize my errors. To repeat the sentence at first cited: “The best tranquilizer is a quiet conscience.”