How then is one to get rid of guilt—the consciousness of guilt and the evil impulses?
Christ answers more simply than the theologians who represent the work of grace as an examination course. "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," He said to the thief who confessed that he suffered for his evil deeds; but He did not say so to the other who reviled Him.
Generally speaking, one should take one's doctrine straight from the Gospels, which are simpler, greater, diviner than other writings. Devotional books are like the higher mathematics, mixed, complicated, and affected with human weaknesses.
The Gospel.—All boast of the "Gospel," but they mean this joyful message—the abrogation of civic laws and the opening of the jails; in a word, immunity from punishment for themselves and more stringent regulations for others. That was the Renaissance morality preached at the conclusion of the Middle Ages as at the end of our century. They wished to enlighten mankind by proclaiming that everything is lawful (against others), and that if one only "understood" men, one would forgive them. "He does not understand," was the formula in common use. Were I now to enumerate all the victims of this gospel, which we had to learn, people would cry "Scandal!" Then they would proceed to explain the tragedies on natural grounds, such as neurasthenia, infection, heredity (but not from our first parents); the unfortunate Englishman,[1] they say, was wrongfully imprisoned, because society consists of hypocrites; not because of his own sin, for it was not his own sin: there is no sin.
Every suggestion that there are misdemeanours which draw down the unpleasant consequences, which are called punishments, is taken ill.
Five years ago I heard one of these evangelists exclaim, "Morality! that is a word which I cannot take in my mouth." This saying was often quoted.
But shortly afterwards the same gentleman set heaven and hell in motion because a pupil had used a statement in one of his lectures to base a treatise on. This innocent proceeding the "evangelist" stigmatised as theft, and he wished to annihilate the thief.
The young man answered quite rightly that in that case people ought to be punished for "stealing" their knowledge out of manuals without acknowledgment, or that if they gave chapter and verse for every statement, a treatise would look like this: "Sum, 'I am' (Rabe's Grammar, 6th edition, Stockholm, 1858), called an auxiliary verb (Sundelin Schwedische Sprachlehre, Örebro, 1901), which indicates the passive voice (Sjoberg, Logic, Upsala, 1895)," and so on.
This gentleman was a very severe moralist, although he could not take the word morality in his mouth.
[1] Oscar Wilde.