The Man who Sings Lullabies to His Conscience – Sunday, June 30, 1940
Responding to the accusation that he was merely attempting to justify his own actions by false reasoning, the brilliant but misguided young man replied,. “Of course, I am justifying my own actions. A man cannot enjoy life in any sense of the word, if he cannot justify his own actions in his own mind.” No man can find peace or pleasure so long as he is pursued by an awareness of guilt.
This is true both of those who are callous to wrong-doing and of those who still have an active sense of justice; and this fact is often the beginning of a dull and dying conscience, because once a man has done something that he knows he should not have done, he immediately begins to tell himself why he was justified In doing it. If he takes money that does not belong to him, perhaps he tells himself that he has earned it — that others with less ability are getting more – or perhaps he tells himself that he is only borrowing it and will replace it. And so it goes through all the list of mistakes and misdeeds that men are guilty of, and most men who do what they should not do are able to tell themselves many good reasons why they did what they did. And so they sing lullabies to their conscience and live on in a fool’s paradise, unto the day when there will be a rude awakening at that time and in that place when the conscience of every man will be quickened, no matter how soundly he has sung it to sleep.
A trend of thought is started on its way by those immortal lines from the pen of Tennyson, to which Holden Huss gave musical setting – “Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me” – often a moment of poetic inspiration sums up with conviction what man was, what he is, and what he shall yet become. Somehow we are reminded of those words which the Lord spoke and which we find recorded in the Old Testament-. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? * * * Knowest thou it because thou wast then born or because the number of thy days is great?” (Job 39:4-7.) With this harking back to things that were before memory began and with this suggestion of things that shall yet be in the eternal life of man, we hear “Crossing the Bar.”
June 30, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,567