does it rise and fall, and by a beautifully delicate apparatus this rising and falling is magnified and represented upon the dial. Such barometers are made small enough to be carried in the pocket, and are very useful for measuring the heights of mountains; but they are not quite so accurate as the mercurial barometer, and are therefore not used for rigidly scientific measurements; but for all ordinary purposes they are accurate enough, provided they are occasionally compared with a standard mercurial barometer, and adjusted by means of the watch-key axis provided for that purpose, and seen on the back of the instrument. They are sufficiently delicate to tell the traveler in a railway whether he is ascending or descending an incline, and will indicate the difference of height between the upper and lower rooms of a three-story house. The unseen air in the aneroid is a mark of the rise or fall in altitude of the possessor of the instrument.
Conscience plays a like part in morals.
It is always with us and always admonishes
us of the varying moral altitudes
to which we rise or fall.
(542)
CONSCIENCE BENUMBED
One of the most astonishing things in
prison life is said to be the deficiency of
conscience in criminals. Scenes of heartrending
despair are rarely witnessed among
them. Their sleep is broken by no uneasy
dreams; on the contrary, it is easy and
sound: they have also excellent appetites.
They have a sense of self-righteousness, and
feel, on the whole, that they have been
wronged. Recently the newspapers told us
of the execution of a grave-digger upon the
Continent, who had been convicted of four
murders, five robberies, eight cases of incendiarism,
and other crimes. When he was
informed that he would be hanged early
next morning, he said that he deserved his
fate, but he assured his judge that worse
fellows than he were running about the
world.
To have no consciousness of sin, no
proper consciousness of it, is no proof
of our integrity; much more likely is it
a proof that our conscience has become
benumbed and indurated by years of
worldliness and disobedience. (Text.)—W.
L. Watkinson, "The Transfigured
Sackcloth."
(543)
CONSCIENCE, CHRISTIAN
The following is told of Mr. Frank Crossley, a great promoter and founder of London missionary work:
Mr. Crossley was conscience incarnate.
While yet a poor apprentice he had got free
admission to a theater through the connivance
of a fellow workman who kept the
door; but when, as a renewed man, conscience
demanded reparation for this sort of
robbery, he reckoned up the entrance fee he
had evaded, and sent the theater company
sixty pounds.—Pierson, "The Miracles of
Missions."
(544)
CONSCIENCE, TROUBLED
A quiet, bashful sort of a young fellow
was making a call on a Capitol Hill girl one
evening not so very long ago, when her
father came into the parlor with his watch
in his hand. It was about 9:30 o'clock. At
the moment the young man was standing on
a chair straightening a picture over the piano.
The girl had asked him to fix it. As he
turned, the old gentleman, a gruff, stout
fellow, said:
"Young man, do you know what time it is?"
The bashful youth got off the chair nervously. "Yes, sir," he replied. "I was just going."
He went into the hall without any delay and took his hat and coat. The girl's father followed him. As the caller reached for the doorknob, the old gentleman again asked him if he knew what time it was.
"Yes, sir," was the youth's reply. "Goodnight!" And he left without waiting to put his coat on.
After the door had closed the old gentleman turned to the girl.
"What's the matter with that fellow?" he asked. "My watch ran down this afternoon and I wanted him to tell me the time, so that I could set it."—Denver Post.
(545)
CONSCIOUSNESS
Is there any difference between the vibrations of sound on the tympanum of the ear and those on the surface of the water? Science does not seem to see a great difference, but Ruskin finds, in the differing effects, an illustration of the mystery of consciousness:
It is quite true that the tympanum of the
