Human law, no less than divine law, requires us to love our neighbor as
ourselves. Is the law obeyed when we make the smallest approach to
taking that advantage of a neighbor, which we would not like to have
taken of us in similar circumstances?

Those who admit and seem to understand the power of habit in larger
matters, are yet prone to forget the tendency of an habitual disregard
of right and wrong in small matters. They are by no means ignorant,
that large rivers are made up of springs, and rills, and brooks; but
they do not seem to consider that the larger stream of conscientiousness
must also be fed by its thousand tributaries, or it will never flow; or
once flowing, will be likely soon to cease. In other words, to be
conscientious--truly so--in the larger and more important concerns of
life, we must be habitually, and I had almost said religiously so, in
smaller matters--in our most common and every day concerns.

Would that nothing worse were true, than that people of all ranks and
professions, and of all ages and conditions, habitually, and with less
and less compunction or regret, do that which they know they ought not
to do, and leave undone that which they very well know ought to be
done. For they even seem to justify themselves in it.

"I know the right, and I approve it too;
I know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue"--

is the language of many an individual--even of some from whom we could
hope better things; and not a few charge it upon the frailty of fallen
nature--as that nature now is--independent of, and in spite of their
own efforts! Strange infatuation!