How to be Happy, How Can we recognise Peace of Conscience?

How Can we recognise Peace of Conscience?

1.i. It may be observed, in the first place, that security and indifference are no evidence of peace.

A man, owing to various causes, may enjoy comparative ease, while at the same time there may lodge in his bosom elements of distress. His present quietude may be the result of levity and inconsideration. Hence his peace is similar to that a of a man who ignorantly travels over a frozen lake, supposing it to be a firm plain.

It is well known that a repetition of the same sin tends immediately to impair one's moral perception, and to deaden every refined sensibility.

But though a man may not at present think much of the evil of his actions, yet this is by no means a proof that he shall be hereafter free from the painful emotions connected with a guilty conscience. We are told that the little insect in Africa called tetse, secretly bites the cattle, and that its bite is always fatal. Still, the bitten animal appears for a while as healthy and frisky as ever, but the day at last arrives on which the instilled poison shows its deadly effects.

Through the commission of sin a moral poison is infused into a man's conscience and though he may for a time addict himself to mirth and folly, yet a period will arrive in which its terrible effects will be experienced.