p. 643 | Conscience

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 41.

Conscience.

A VERY important element in the training of the young in the home, in the day-school, and in the Sabbath-school should be the education of the conscience—the cultivation of a keen sense of right and wrong concerning every moral question that may engage the attention, and especially concerning every moral act which they perform.

Conscience should be trained to discriminate between the right and the wrong in all matters as judged, not by feeling or preference or preconceived opinion—not by any standard found within the individual, but by the undeviating standard of God's word. It should be a conscience that recognizes no sliding scale of judgment, and no power of individual discretion in the application of rules of duty under varying circumstances of personal interest and convenience. It should recognize the right as everywhere right and always right, and the wrong as everywhere and always wrong.

A healthy conscience will be careful also in applying the principles which underlie God's commands to conduct and opinions which cannot be covered by specific rules. A healthy conscience will always lead one to judge concerning right and wrong totally independent of the judgment of others, and guided alone by God's word.

Such a conscience is the foundation of all true and stable Christian character; for without it there can be no keen sense of sin, and so no keen sense of a need of Christ, and consequently no lively faith in him. Such a conscience is the foundation of all trustworthiness. It is wanted in the church, in the family, in business, in offices of public trust, at the ballot-box, everywhere.—Sabbath Recorder.