MODERN CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
By Editor
FROM a correspondent to the Allegan (Mich.) Journal, in its issue of July 12, it is stated that a school not being able to find the date and place of the poet, Will Carleton's, birth, detailed a committee to write him. Mr. Carleton replied, but the date of his letter belied him. The correspondent says:— "Mr. Carleton believes in the strict observance of the Sabbath [Sunday] and is always conscientious in regard to it. The postmark on the envelope shows that the letter was mailed on his way home from church, but the date on the inside is of the next day, Monday. He had to all appearances strictly kept Sunday, but the postal clerk gave him away with one wicked brand of the stamp on the outside. The letter and the envelope have both been framed and hung up in the school-room, a subject for a Sunday-school lesson. Mr. Carleton was born at Hudson, Mich., Oct. 21, 1845." The conscientiousness ascribed to Mr. Carleton is of the same character held by the great majority of Sunday-keepers, and professed Christians, so far as our observation goes and as described by common report in religious journals. It is a conscientiousness that no one shall know how much our acts belie our professions. The only rule of conscience is the word of God, and when men depart from that and follow tradition which makes void the commands of God, we can expect nothing else than a deterioration of conscience. May God give us a conscientiousness in harmony with his word, that pertains to motive as well as act.