May 30

If we say that we have no sin, we describe ourselves. 1 JOHN i. 8.

If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. — JOHN ix. 41.

OUR Lord means by these words that if those who were rejecting his moral allegiance were really blind they would not incur sin. But since they were rejoicing in their light, the fact of their sin remained. Where there is no law there is no sin, and where there is no light there is no shadow. So then whenever we see a law of God and act regardless of it, or wherever we recognize a sin and yet indulge in it, we bring our consciousness to be our own judge, we make our very light the revelation of our moral darkness.

W. B. Bickford Kenton

Blame not the times in which you live, Nor fortune frail and fugitive; Blame not thy parents, nor the rule Of vice or wrong once learned at school; But blame thyself, O man! Although both heaven and earth combined To mould thy flesh and form thy mind, Though every thought, word, action, will, Were framed by powers beyond thee; still Thou art thyself, O man! And self to take or leave is free, Feeling its own sufficiency; In spite of science, spite of fate, The judge within thee soon or late Will blame but thee, O man! Say not, I would, but could not; he Should bear the blame who fashioned me. Call you mere change of motive, choice? Scorning such pleas, the inner voice Cries, "Thine the deed, O man!"