Juvenile Logic

1895

A 6-year-old logician was once worrying her excellent mother in my hearing about the omniscience and ubiquity of conscience. "She knows everything you say and is everywhere?" "Well, yes, my dear, she is everywhere." "Then she is in this ink bottle, and I've corked her up. We will have no more of Miss Conscience." — Family Journal.

Restitution After Thirty-One Years

1916

MAN REPAYS MONEY HE WRONGFULLY TOOK.

Aged and Needy Recipient Made Comfortable With $200 Gold and $400 as Interest.

SOMERSET, Pa. — William Speicher, of Kantner, a news agent on the Somerset & Cambria Branch Railroad, received a letter from an aged resident of Quemahoning Township, in which is told how a man with a troubled conscience returned, with interest, $200, the theft of which enabled him to grow well off while the owner of the money was made poor for life by the loss of it.

"On May 31st, thirty-one years ago," wrote the aged man, "I started for Stoyestown with a pocketbook containing $200 to make the first payment on a home that I had purchased. When I arrived there the package was missing. I returned home at once, but could find no trace of it. It was money that I had earned by hard labor. I was much broken up over the loss, ill health followed and I never had a home of my own.

"A few days ago there came a rap at my door. I opened it and a stranger stood there. I invited him in and he seated himself. He sized me up, but spoke but little. After inquiring about my identity he took from his pocket $200 in gold and counted it out to me. He said it was my money and asked me to accept it. 'I owe you interest on it for 31 years,' he went on. 'Here is $400 more to cover that. Thank God, I am free once more,' he said. I was amazed. I could not understand his actions and asked an explanation.

"'Thirty-one years ago,' he replied, 'I was on my way from a part of Somerset County to Johnstown to take a train for Kansas. I had but a few dollars in money. I was walking on the road behind you while you were driving to Stoyestown and saw you drop the money. I picked it up and stowed it away in my pocket. At the latter town I got your name and went out West. I took up land near Leavenworth, Kansas, and fortune came my way. I took up more land. Returning to my native county I got married. I grew wealthy and I can now count my wealth by many thousands of dollars, but having your money in my possession always worried me, so I decided to return it to you and confess that I took it.'

"He said that he found out that his conscience, was worth more to him than his wealth, then he bade me good-by."

From almost destitute circumstances at 75 years of age, the old man has been placed in comparative comfort.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.

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.