p. 83 | The Detecter by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 11, 1863

The Detecter.

By Editor

In one of our insane asylums a man was for a long time confined who did nothing but pace up and down his cell, and then turn upon his heel and give the word to "fire?" He had shot his antagonist in a duel, and gone crazy under the remorse occasioned by the bloody deed. That was the power of conscience.

It is based on a sense of God's omniscience. "Thou, God, seest me," has been more terrible to the murderer than the pursuit of a score of detectives. No mortal has seen him do the damning deed. Perhaps he struck the blow in the depths of a forest, or in the solitude of a remote chamber. No ear heard the death-groan of his victim, and dead men tell no tales. But still there is a voice crying to him from the ground that tells him he is seen—that there is an All-seeing Eye which, piercing through the silent heavens, penetrates to the bottom of his blood-stained soul. This harrowing conscience follows him wherever he goes. Solitude becomes no solitude to him. He is ever in the broad glare of an intelligence that reads him and his guilty secret through and through. The whole air is alive; and every rustling leaf, and passing wind, sounds to him like the coming footsteps of a vengeance sent upon him by an omniscient God.

This sense of an All-seeing Eye acts upon men like an instinct. It is impossible to argue it down; it is impossible to bribe it into silence. Under its influence many a one living in secret sin has sunk into melancholy, or died before their time. Others have sought to fathom the secret of their mental derangement—or to discover the mysterious disease that laid them low. They died at the hand of an aroused conscience. "Thou, God, seest me," had a terror for them, under which "heart and flesh failed" them; the mind quailed, and life became an insupportable burthen. May we not find in this the solution of so many unhappy lives, even amid all the surroundings of external comfort or of luxury? May we not detect in this the reason of many a recourse to the intoxicating cup? Conscience has frequently driven the duelist, the destroyer of female purity, or the betrayer of trust, to the slow suicide of the bottle.

The other day we read of a man who had secretly returned to the Revenue officer a sum of money which had been dishonestly withheld from the Government. It was not the fear of human detection that made the smuggler disgorge his unjust gain, for that had entirely passed away. But he "remembered God and was troubled." His guilty conscience needed no human accuser. While the flaming eye of the Divine Detector saw those stolen dollars in his purse, or his safe, he did not dare to keep them there.

Dying beds are often made wretched by the consciousness that death will bring exposure, and that the sinner is finally going into the presence of one who will bring "every secret thing into judgment." But what a mistake to suppose that there is really such a thing as a secret sin! Sin is an offense against God, and if he but sees the offense, and if he but knows it, what matters it how many or how few of our fellow-men have knowledge of the act? Then flatter not thyself, O dishonest man! that thy iron-safe is a secret place. Dream not, O breaker of the seventh commandment! that the privacy of the most private chamber hides thee from the All-Seer. Joseph did not feel himself alone with Potiphar's shameless wanton when he said,

"How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"

Secret sins! There are none. The eye of God detects every ill-gotten dollar in my purse. If I keep back or pervert the truth, he sees the lie lying black in the bottom of my heart. He knows my half-formed thoughts before they have even taken shape in my own mind. Not even a wicked thought can I cherish against my neighbor—not even a secret unbelief can I indulge—not even a hollow, hypocritical profession can I make, or formal false prayer can I whisper in my closet, but it is known at once to Him with whom I have to do. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. "Surely," says Jeremy Taylor, "if we would always remember that Jehovah is the great Eye of the world, ever beholding our actions, and an ever open ear to hear all our words, and an unwearied arm ever lifted up to crush a sinner into ruin, it would cause much sin to cease from among us, and make us more like those who continually walk in the light before his throne."