ining through made Luther's face luminous, as it had made the face
of Moses before him!

As obedience to the behests of conscience has always yielded happiness
and formed character, so disobedience has always destroyed manhood.
The great novelists have exhibited the deterioration of character in
their hero as beginning with a sin against the sense of duty. In
Romola, George Eliot exhibits Tito as a gifted and ideal youth. The
orphan child was adopted by the Greek scholar, who lavished upon him
all the gifts of affection, all the culture and embellishments of the
schools, all the comforts of a beautiful home; and when the longing
for foreign travel came upon the youth the foster-father could not
deny him, but took passage for Tito and himself and sailed for
Alexandria. But the motto of Tito's life was, get all the pleasure
you can, avoid all the pain. Soon the old scholar became a clog and a
burden. One night, conscience battled for its life with Tito. At
midnight the youth arose, unbuckled from his father's waist the
leather belt stuffed with jewels, and fled into the night, leaving the
gray-haired man among strangers whose language he could not speak.

Then this youth sailed away to Florence. There his handsome person,
his Southern beauty, his grace of address, his aptitude for affairs,
won him the admiration of the wisest statesmen and the heart of one of
the noblest of women. But all the time we feel toward this beautiful
youth that same loathing and contempt that we feel toward a beautiful
young tiger. Tito had no conscience toward Romola, no conscience
toward her father's priceless library, no conscience toward the
patriots struggling for the city's liberty; he played the traitor
toward all. His soul was, indeed, sheathed in a glowing and beautiful
body; but it was the corpse sheathed over with flowers and vines; and
so conscience becomes an avenger upon Tito. When the keystone goes
from the arch, all must crash down in ruins. Unconsciously but surely
the youth moved toward his destruction. The day of doom was delayed,
but there came an hour when conscience first drove Tito into the
Arno's swift current, and then became a millstone, that sunk him into
the deep abyss. For ours is a world in which nature and God cannot
afford to permit sin to prosper. Conscience is God's avenger.

Open all the master books, and they portray the same truth. Three of
the seven greatest novels deal with conscience. Seven of the world'