Knowledge alone is feeble, marginal in our lives. We
often sin in the full knowledge of the penalties awaiting us. We need
something more dynamic, pressure as well as information. Conscience
is such a driver. Its commands weigh upon us, and will not be stilled.
Reason plays but a weak part in the best of us; and to counteract our
incurable waywardness, our recurrent longings for what cannot be had
without too great a cost, we need not only the presence of law and
convention, not only the weak voice of knowledge, but the stern
summons of this powerful psychological response. Nature was wise
when she evolved this function as a bulwark against our weakness,
a bit between our because of our forgetfulness. Over and over again
we say, "I didn't stop to think." If our conscience had been properly
acute, it would have made us stop. Insight, however comprehensive
and clear, is apt to remain somewhere in a locked drawer in our minds
when the hot blooded impulse appears. If we were but to pause and
reflect, we should be sensible and kind. But our intellect is dulled by
our emotions, it does not get working. We need a more instinctive,
a deeper-rooted mechanism, an imperious "Halt!" at the brief moment
between the thought of sin and the act. Conscience is not only a
teacher and a driver, it is a sentinel. Its red flag stops us at the brink
of many a disaster, and we have it to thank for many an otherwise
forgotten duty performed.
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