THE ALARM CLOCK—AN OBJECT LESSON ON CONSCIENCE

Let the speaker bring in an alarm clock, all wound, and set for a certain hour. He turns the hands and lets the alarm go off.

“Why, what a racket, children! I should think that would rouse the soundest sleeper, wouldn’t you? But, do you know, men get so that they can sleep through all that noise. How do they do it? Well, at first they spring up promptly, as soon as they hear the ring. But soon they grow careless and lazy, and turn over for another nap, even after the alarm has sounded. And soon they can sleep right through the loudest alarm, even if it rings only a few inches from their ears.

“On the other hand, children, if a man sets his alarm regularly at the same time each day, and obeys it when it rings, jumping up without a thought of another nap, some way he becomes a sort of alarm clock himself, and doesn’t need this clock of wheels and springs. He will wake up at just the right time, and will have his eyes open before the first whir of the clock has sounded forth. Isn’t that queer?

“Now this is just the way your consciences act, my boys and girls. If you do not obey them promptly and always, soon you will cease to hear them at all. But if you mind what they say, you will become wonderfully sensitive to the right and wrong, so that you can know what your consciences will tell you even before they speak.”