Consequences may be, must be, faced in anticipation, or a man is a
fool. He that allows the clearest perception of disagreeable
consequences, such as pain, loss of ease, loss of reputation, loss of
money, or any other harmful results that may follow, to frighten him
out of the road that he knows he ought to take, is a worse fool still,
for he is a coward and recreant to his own conscience.

We have to look into our own hearts for the most solemn and pressing
illustrations of this sin, and I daresay we all of us can remember
clear duties that we have neglected, because we did not like to face
what would come from them. A man in business will say, 'I cannot
afford to have such a high standard of morality; I shall be hopelessly
run over in the race with my competitors if I do not do as they do,'
or he will say, 'I durst not take a stand as an out-and-out Christian;
I shall lose connections, I shall lose position. People will laugh at
me. What am I to do for the hundred talents?'

But we can find the same thing in Churches. I do not mean to enter
upon controversial questions, but as an instance, I may remind you
that one great argument that our friends who believe in an Established
Church are always bringing forward, is just a modern form of Amaziah's
question, 'What shall we do for the hundred talents? How could the
Church be maintained, how could its ministrations be continued, if its
State-provided revenues were withdrawn or given up?' But it is not
only Anglicans who put the consideration of the consequences of
obedience in the wrong place. All the Churches are but too apt to let
their eyes wander from reading the plain precepts of the New Testament
to looking for the damaging results to be expected from keeping them.
Do we not sometimes hear, as answer to would-be reformers, 'We cannot
afford to give up this, that, or the other practice? We should not be