Penalty of Wrong Doing.
By Channing
The lines of suffering on almost every human countenance have been deepened, if not traced there, by unfaithfulness to conscience, by departure from duty. To do wrong is the surest way to bring suffering; no wrong deed ever failed to bring it. Those sins which are followed by no palpable pain are yet terribly avenged, even in this life. They abridge our capacity of happiness, impair our relish for innocent pleasure, and increase our sensibility to suffering. They spoil us of the armor of a pure conscience and of trust in God, without which we are naked amid hosts of foes, and are vulnerable by all the changes of life. Thus, to do wrong is to inflict the surest injury on our own peace. No enemy can do us equal harm with what we do ourselves whenever or however we violate any moral or religious obligation.—Channing.