sense of the possibility of forgiveness. Of course the sense of sin
is a terribly complicated one, because it seems to be made up
partly of an inner sense of transgression, a sense of failure, a
consciousness that we have acted unworthily, meanly, miserably. Yet
the sense of sin follows many acts that are not in themselves
necessarily disastrous either to oneself or the community. Then
there is a further sense of sin, perhaps developed by long
inheritance of instinct, which seems to attend acts not in
themselves sinful, but which menace the security of society. For
instance, there is nothing sinful in a man's desiring to save
himself, and in fact saving himself, from a sudden danger. If a man
leaps out of the way of a runaway cart, or throws himself on the
ground to avoid the accidental discharge of a gun, he would never
be blamed, nor would he blame himself, for any want of courage. Yet
if a man in a battle saves himself from death by flight, he would
regard himself, and be regarded by others, as having failed in his
duty, and he would be apt to feel a lifelong shame and remorse for
having yielded to the impulse. Again, the deliberate killing of
another human being in a fit of anger, however just, would be
regarded by the offender as a deeply sinful act, and he would not
quarrel with the justice of the sentence of death which would be
meted out to him; but when we transfer the same act to the region
of war, which is consecrated by the usage of society, a man who had
slain a hundred enemies would regard the fact with a certain
complacency, and would not be even encouraged by a minister of
religion to repent of his hundred heinous crimes upon his deathbed.

The sense, then, of sin is in a certain degree an artificial sense,
and would seem to consist partly of a deep and divine instinct
which arraigns the soul for acts, which may be in themselves