The bad thing which you have done, or the bad tempers which you have given way to, or the person whom you have quarrelled with, hang in your mind, and darken all your thoughts:  and you try not to remember them:  but conscience makes you remember them, and will not let the dark thought fly away; till you can enjoy nothing, because your heart is not clean and clear; there is something in the background which makes you sad whenever you try to be happy.  Then a man tries first to deceive himself.  He says to himself, ’No, that sin is not what makes me unhappy—­not that;’ and he tries to find out any and every reason for his uncomfortable feelings, except the very thing which he knows all the while in the bottom of his heart is the real reason.  He says, ’Well, perhaps I am unhappy because I have done something wrong:  what wrong can I have done?’ And so he sets to work to find out every sin except the sin which is the cause of all, because that one he does not like to face:  it is too real, and ugly, and humbling to his proud spirit; and perhaps he is afraid of having to give it up.  So I have known a man confess himself a sinner, a miserable sinner, freely enough, and then break out into a rage with you, if you dare to speak a word of the one sin which you know that he has actually committed.  ‘No, sir,’ he will say, ’whatever I may be wrong in, I am right there.  I have committed sins too many, I know:  but you cannot charge me with that, at least;’—­and all the more because he knows that everybody round is charging him with it, and that the thing is as notorious as the sun in heaven.  But that makes him, in his pride, all the more determined not to confess himself in the wrong on that one point; and he will go and confess to God, and perhaps to man, all manner of secret sins, nay, even invent sins for himself out of things which are no sins, and confess himself humbly in the wrong where perhaps he is all right, just to drug his conscience, and be able to say, ’I have repented,’—­repented, that is, of everything but what he and all the world know that he ought to repent of.

But still his conscience is not easy:  he has no peace of mind:  he is like David:  ’While I held my peace, my bones waxed old through my daily complaining.’  God’s hand is heavy on him day and night, and his moisture is like the drought in summer:  his heart feels hard and dry; he cannot enjoy himself; he is moody; he lies awake and frets at night, and goes listlessly and heavily about his business in the morning; his heart is not right with God, and he knows it; God and he are not at peace, and he knows it.

Then he tries to repent:  but it is a false, useless sort of repentance.  He says to Himself, as David did, ’Well, then, I will make my peace with God:  I will please Him.  I have done one wrong thing.  I will do two right ones to make up for it.’  If he is a rich man, he perhaps tries David’s plan of burnt-offerings and sacrifices.  He says, ’I will give away a great deal in charity; I will build a church; I will take a great deal of trouble about societies, and speak at religious meetings, and show God how much I really do care for Him after all, and what great sacrifices I can make for Him.’