It is the mark of what we call a righteous decision, that it is made directly and for its own sake.  The whole man, mind and body, having come to an agreement, tyrannically dictates conduct.  There are two dispositions eternally opposed:  that in which we recognise that one thing is wrong and another right, and that in which, not seeing any clear distinction, we fall back on the consideration of consequences.  The truth is, by the scope of our present teaching, nothing is thought very wrong and nothing very right, except a few actions which have the disadvantage of being disrespectable when found out; the more serious part of men inclining to think all things rather wrong, the more jovial to suppose them right enough for practical purposes.  I will engage my head, they do not find that view in their own hearts; they have taken it up in a dark despair; they are but troubled sleepers talking in their sleep.  The soul, or my soul at least, thinks very distinctly upon many points of right and wrong, and often differs flatly with what is held out as the thought of corporate humanity in the code of society or the code of law.  Am I to suppose myself a monster?  I have only to read books, the Christian Gospels for example, to think myself a monster no longer; and instead I think the mass of people are merely speaking in their sleep.

It is a commonplace, enshrined, if I mistake not, even in school copy-books, that honour is to be sought and not fame.  I ask no other admission; we are to seek honour, upright walking with our own conscience every hour of the day, and not fame, the consequence, the far-off reverberation of our footsteps.  The walk, not the rumour of the walk, is what concerns righteousness.  Better disrespectable honour than dishonourable fame.  Better useless or seemingly hurtful honour, than dishonour ruling empires and filling the mouths of thousands.  For the man must walk by what he sees, and leave the issue with God who made him and taught him by the fortune of his life.  You would not dishonour yourself for money; which is at least tangible; would you do it, then, for a doubtful forecast in politics, or another person’s theory in morals?

So intricate is the scheme of our affairs, that no man can calculate the bearing of his own behaviour even on those immediately around him, how much less upon the world at large or on succeeding generations!  To walk by external prudence and the rule of consequences would require, not a man, but God.  All that we know to guide us in this changing labyrinth is our soul with its fixed design of righteousness, and a few old precepts which commend themselves to that.  The precepts are vague when we endeavour to apply them; consequences are more entangled than a wisp of string, and their confusion is unrestingly in change; we must hold to what we know and walk by it.  We must walk by faith, indeed, and not by knowledge.