nificant. They would not forget to say
grace before and after meals, but would knife the neighbor's character
or soil their minds with all filthiness, without a scruple or a shadow
of remorse.

These are they who walk in the broad way that leadeth to destruction.
In the first place, their conscience or the thing that does duty for a
conscience, is false and they are responsible for it. Then, this sort
of a conscience is not habitually certain, and laxity consists
precisely in contemning doubts and passing over lurking, lingering
suspicions as not worthy of notice. Lastly, it has not the quality of
common prudence since the judgment it pronounces is not supported by
plausible reasons. Its character is dishonesty.

A scruple is a little sharp stone formerly used as a measure of weight.
Pharmacists always have scruples. There is nothing so torturing as to
walk with one or several of these pebbles in the shoe. Spiritual
scruples serve the same purpose for the conscience. They torture and
torment; they make devotion and prayer impossible, and blind the
conscience; they weaken the mind, exhaust the bodily forces, and cause
a disease that not infrequently comes to a climax in despair or
insanity.

A scrupulous conscience is not to be followed as a standard of right
and wrong, because it is unreasonable. In its final analysis it is not
certain, but doubtful and improbable, and is influenced by the most
futile reasons. It is lawful, it is even necessary, to refuse assent to
the dictates of such a conscience. To persons thus afflicted the
authoritative need of a prudent adviser must serve as a rule until the
conscience is cured of its morbid and erratic tendencies.

It is not scruples to walk in the fear of God, and avoid sin and the
occasions thereof: that is wisdom; nor to frequent the sacraments and
be assiduous in prayer through a deep concern for the welfare of one's
soul: that is piety.

It is not scruples to be at a loss to decide whether a thing is wrong
or right; that is doubt; nor to suffer keenly after the commission of a
grievous sin; that is remorse.

It is not scruples to be greatly anxious and disturbed over past
confessions when there is a reasonable cause for it: that is natural.

A scrupulous person is one who, outside these several contingencies, is
continually racked with fears, and persists, against all evidence, in
seeing sin where there is none, or magnifies it beyond all proportion
where it really