"Who that reflects can fail to see this at least, that a crime
brings a man face to face with the reality of things? He who knows
himself a sinner--I do not mean as one of the race--the most
self-righteous man will allow that as a man he is a sinner--he to
whom, in the words of the communion service, the remembrance of his
sins is grievous, and the burden of them intolerable, knows in
himself that he is a lost man. He can no more hold up his head among
his kind; he cannot look a woman or a child in the face; he cannot
be left alone with the chaos of his thoughts, and the monsters it
momently breeds. The joys of his childhood, the delights of
existence, are gone from him. There dwells within him an ever
present judgment and fiery indignation. Such a man will start at the
sound of pardon and peace, even as the camel of the desert at the
scent of water. Therefore surely is such a man nearer to the gate of
the kingdom than he against whom the world has never wagged a
tongue, who never sinned against a social custom even, and has as
easy a conscience as the day he was born; but who knows so little of
himself that, while he thinks he is good enough, he carries within
him the capacity and possibility of every cardinal sin, waiting only
the special and fitting temptation which, like the match to the
charged mine, shall set all in a roar! Of this danger he knows
nothing, never dreams of praying against it, takes his seat in his
pew Sunday after Sunday with his family, nor ever murmurs Lead us
not into temptation with the least sense that temptation is a
frightful thing, but repeats and responds and listens in perfect
self-satisfaction, doubting never that a world made up of such as he
must be a pleasant sight in the eyes of the Perfect.
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