crime of the death of innocence and truth. "It is conscience that makes cowards of us all."

The great novelists, and dramatists, and poets have all emphasized the truth of conscience and given most vivid illustrations of its methods and its power. The master of the world in this respect is unquestionably Shakespeare. In Richard III. he cries exultingly, "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." Then Clarence is murdered; then Hastings follows; then the noblemen; then Richard's wife; then the helpless boys in the tower; and conscience has conquered the monarch at last and made him a shivering coward. In his tent he sits at midnight, while before him pass all of his victims in ghostly procession, and he cries, in the deepest agony of the human soul: "Have mercy, Jesus! Soft, I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! The lights burn blue. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain."

Hamlet knew the power of conscience, and watched the guilty monarch, and when the poison was poured he cried: "Give me some light-away!

O my offence is rank, and smells to heaven! It hath the primal curse upon it—a brother's murder."

Macbeth's conscience is like a thousand stinging serpents in the centre of the heart, and forces the cry: “Avaunt and quit my sight; let the earth hide thee! Take any shape but that! Hence, horrible shadow." Then Lady Macbeth, in her sleep, endeavors to wash an imaginary blood-stain from her hand, and exclaims, “Out, damned spot!" And then, and with a wail of woe and terror, adds: "Here is the smell of blood still. Not all the perfumes of Arabia will sweeten this little hand." The indelible stain would not wash. If the ocean-bed were the basin, and it was full, the blood would still remain upon the hands of Cain, and Pilate, and Judas.

There are two men in every man. The inner man is the better. When the outer man violates conviction, the inner man makes emphatic protest. This is a great fact of life which must be reckoned with the same as every other fact. It will not suffer denial or ignorance. It is real and most vital. This is God's best gift to humanity. Imagination, and reason, and memory, and all other faculties take a scondary place. This is the supreme element in man. It is the eye of the soul. There is a war

for life or death between the higher and lower nature; between good and evil. In this struggle for mastery conscience is the commander of the good forces. It is that peculiar power in the soul which commands all the rest of the army of faculties. It always orders death to the evil. It stands courageous for righteousness, with all the reserve force of heaven at its call. Man is a free moral agent. All men act that truth whether they theoretically proclaim it or not. In the realm of that freedom conscience moves with kingly attitude, We are slaves only as we will be. It is not by compulsion of the higher laws. It is the glory of our manhood that the dictates of conscience can be carried out. It is the voice of the Supreme Will in the soul, and the greater good is attained by action in conformity to this Will of all wisdom and all love. Man would be the creature of circumstances if it was not for his will and his conscience. But he can be now the king of the world and his royalty be eternal. "He is a free man whom the truth makes free and all are slaves beside."

The Bible does not prove the existence of conscience. It simply recognizes the fact. Neither does it prove the existence of God, but declares,

"In the beginning, God." Revelation takes for granted the reality and the recognition of conscience in human history. It is born with the child the same as any other faculty. Appearances are always against the cradle. Reason and imagination, even, do not seem to be there. The argument is won only by comparison with other members of the human family. The child cannot speak, therefore it is dumb? No! Wait for development. Conscience demands time for its appearance. It may not be a separate faculty; it may be of a composite nature and more intimately related to the other faculties than they are to each other. However that may be, it is rocked in the cradle and grows with its human home and the other occupants.

This moral sense is not the result of law or social life, or any other element. It lies deeper than that. It is a part of the human constitution. It is a part of man without which he would not be man. It is the part nearest to the divine. It holds the secret of God and carries the voice of God. The highest ideal is "to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man."

The child in the home is an interrogation-point at the end of every act of its own and "no" of its

mother. "Why is this not right?" "Why is that wrong?" but gradually he inclines to the right because he feels that inward impulse of duty to obey. He may be naturally disinclined, but drill and teaching change that bent of disposition. Conscience is born at the moment of his birth, but its discipline is a life-long process. In this sense it is an artificial and educated faculty, but no more so than any other one of the two score and more faculties. The child goes out from the home into the world and still remains in the school of life where conscience receives constant instruction.

Conscience does not discover good and evil; it does not interpret right and wrong; it does not determine the moral quality of things. It simply but emphatically declares that man must do the right and not do the wrong. The understanding must decide as to the right or wrong, and immediately the voice of conscience is heard, like the bell within the clock when the machinery has moved the indicator far enough. Conscience does not change with time and circumstances, but there are the most delicate distinctions between right and wrong being made more numerous and more difficult by circumstances and time. Conscience means, etymol