Men have a singular desire to be good without being good for anything, because, perchance, they think vaguely that so it will be good for them in the end.  The sort of morality which the priests inculcate is a very subtle policy, far finer than the politicians, and the world is very successfully ruled by them as the policemen.  It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.  The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolize the whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head.  It is as liable to disease as any other part.  I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace.  They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.

    Conscience is instinct bred in the house,
    Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin
    By an unnatural breeding in and in. 
    I say, Turn it out doors,
    Into the moors. 
    I love a life whose plot is simple,
    And does not thicken with every pimple,
    A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,
    That makes the universe no worse than ’t finds it. 
    I love an earnest soul,
    Whose mighty joy and sorrow
    Are not drowned in a bowl,
    And brought to life to-morrow;
    That lives one tragedy,
    And not seventy;
    A conscience worth keeping,
    Laughing not weeping;
    A conscience wise and steady,
    And forever ready;
    Not changing with events,
    Dealing in compliments;
    A conscience exercised about
    Large things, where one may doubt. 
    I love a soul not all of wood,
    Predestinated to be good,
    But true to the backbone
    Unto itself alone,
    And false to none;
    Born to its own affairs,
    Its own joys and own cares;
    By whom the work which God begun
    Is finished, and not undone;
    Taken up where he left off,
    Whether to worship or to scoff;
    If not good, why then evil,
    If not good god, good devil. 
    Goodness!—­you hypocrite, come out of that,
    Live your life, do your work, then take your hat. 
    I have no patience towards
    Such conscientious cowards. 
    Give me simple laboring folk,
    Who love their work,
    Whose virtue is a song
    To cheer God along.

I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true word spoken on that or any day.  He declared that I was “breaking the Lord’s fourth commandment,” and proceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath.