^ When things go wrong, when others provoke us, then the notion is rer.dy enough at hand that they have sinned, that their account will be heavy ; but we are very slow to comprehend the same thing as it concerns ourselves.^
^ Do not philosophic doctors tell us that we are unable to discern so much as a tree except by an unconscious cunning which combines many past and separate sensations ; that no one sense is independent of another, so that in the dark we can hardly taste a fricassee, or tell whether our pipe is alight or not, and the
» J. Keble.
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most intelligent boy, if accommodated with claws or hoofs instead of fingers, would be likely to remain on the lowest form ? If so, it is easy to understand that our discernment of men's motives must depend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own susceptibility and our own experience. See to it, friend, before you pronoimce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve filaments, which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the invisible world of human sensations,^
2. We shall have to give an account each of his own actions, of his own thought, of his own words, of his own intention ; and, more than all these, of himself. We shall each of us have to give account of the state of our heart, of the condition of our mind before God, whether we repented, whether we believed, whether we loved God, whether we were zealous, whether we were truthful, whether we were faithful. If it dealt only with actions, words, and thoughts, the account would be solemn enough, but we must each one give an account of himself, of what he was as well as of what he did, of what was in his heart as well as of what came out of it in his deeds.
A mute companion at my side
Paces and plods, the whole day long,
Accepts the measure of my stride, Yet gives no cheer by word or song.
More close than any doggish friend, Not ranging far and wide, like him,
He goes where'er my footsteps tend, Nor shrinks for fear of life or limb.
I do not know when we first met.
But till each day's bright hours are done
This grave and speechless silhouette Keeps me betwixt him and the sun.
They say he knew me when a child;
Born with my birth, he dies with me; Not once from his long task beguiled,
Though sin or shame bid others flee.
* George Eliot, Mr. GKljWs Love Story,
428 OUR ACCOUNTABILITY
What if, when all this world of men
Shall melt and fade and pass away, This deathless sprite should rise again
And be himself my Judgment Day?^
^ Daniel Webster was once asked, " What is the most im- portant thought you ever entertained ? " He replied, after a moment's reflection, "The most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God."
IV.
It is Supeeme.
" Each one of us shall give account of himself to God."
1. Eesponsibility implies a person, to whom the responsible man is responsible. All human society is based on and kept together by this law of responsibility to persons. We all know that servants are responsible to their masters, and children to their parents and teachers, and soldiers to their commanding officers, and the clerks in a great business house to the partners, and those who are dependent on others to those on whom they depend. The higher you mount the greater the responsibility, because responsibility implies power and grows with power, so that where there is most power there is most responsibility. In reality masters are more responsible than servants, and parents than children, and officers than the soldiers whom they command, and the heads of a great firm than the clerks in their employment, and employers and superiors generally than those whom they employ and who depend on them. But to whom do those highly placed people, more responsible because invested with more power, owe their debt of responsibility? Eesponsibility is the law of human society; and yet there are always certain members of society who seem to escape it, to be somehow responsible to no one. Wealthy people, with no relations, who as they say, " can do as they like " with their money ; idle people, with no duties or engagements, who have, as they put it, to kill time; clever writers or speakers, with no clear sense of truth or duty, who
^ Thomas Weutworth Higgiuson, To my Shadow,
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think that they may write or say, without let or hindrance, just what occurs to them ; — if these men are really responsible, to whom are they responsible ? So far as this world is concerned, they seem to go through it without having to answer to anybody. To whom is the highest of all, the king, or head of the government, responsible ? Assuredly there is One Being to whom all must give account of themselves, sooner or later — both those who have to give account to their fellow-men, and those who seem in this life to escape all real responsibility whatever. One such Being there is to whom we are all responsible — the Holy and Eternal God.