Your Conscience Is Your Compass

1920

UNCOMMON SENSE
By John Blake

Your Conscience Is Your Compass

There are few men who do not know instinctively right from wrong. In their course through life their consciences are their compasses.

And those compasses are always in a convenient place, ready to be consulted. The thief knows he is a thief, although he may try to justify his thievery. The idler knows he is an idler, and is secretly ashamed of it, although he may find a hundred excuses for being idle. The man who succeeds is the man who uses the compass that nature has placed within him to direct his course and to warn him when he is going wrong.

He cultivates the habit of steering by compass. And he allows nothing to distract his attention.

Two lines that were greatly admired by Doctor Johnson are worth engraving on your mind. They are:

"Though pleased to see the dolphins play I mind my compass and my way."

Learn those two lines and their lesson, and you will be saved many idle and useless wanderings from your course as you navigate the difficult waters of life.

The love of pleasure is strong in man, and should of course be indulged to some extent. But to indulge it to the exclusion of the important business of making the port you are bound for is mere stupidity.

Be thankful for the "silent voice" that will give you your real position if you ask for it Be glad that the most useful information you can obtain is always at hand when you want it — the information as to where you ought to be bound.

Ships set forth through fog and storm, sure that while the compass holds true their course will be right, and they will reach the destination they desire to reach.

You too, by choosing your destination, can reach it, perhaps after delay due to storms or tides, but surely, if though you may occasionally watch the dolphins, your chief attention is upon your compass and your way.

—The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, Nebraska, February 25, 1920, page 6.