OCR Text |
Show AN ELASTIC CONSCIENCE.-A conscience is rather an uncomfortable possession, unless it is pleasingly elastic. An angular and rigid conscience, that holds you strictly to the standard and won't give an inch-that pinches you when you do wrong and won't let you out of a difficulty by allowing you to tell a fib-is an eminently proper, but an undesirable thing. Most people, however, are very little troubled by an over sensitiveness of this organ, and are quite satisfied to evade the truth whenever telling it would get them into difficulty. "Why do you steal apples from my orchard, when you know I'll give you as many as you want just for the asking?" The boy hung his head for a moment in shame, and then, like a true representative of the average conscience of the day, replied, "Well, sir; I knew very well that you would give them to me, and so to save you the trouble of answering my question I went into the orchard and helped myself." |