Is Lack of Right Feeling a Barrier to Right Action?

Men who know their duty, and who fail to do it, often console themselves with the idea that they will at least not claim to be on the right side when they are not there in reality. They think that right feeling is more important than right action and if they do not have the first, it is only an added evil for them to attempt the second. They make the great mistake of supposing that hypocrisy is somehow worse than bare-faced, defiant villainy; that, unless one really is in all things on the right side, it is wrong for him to express any sympathy with those who are there.

It is a man’s duty to show approval of, and sympathy with, the right, even if he be not ready to act always on that side. The other view of the case is, indeed, the mistake

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of many a person who has been led astray in his conduct, while his inner life and heart impulses are in the direction of the right.

A young man who had been well trained at home, and who had enjoyed himself in Christian life and its activities, was for a time in “border life,” under evil influences in a community of reckless wrong-doers. He yielded to his surroundings, and went sadly astray. Then he was again in the society of Christian people, where religious life was prominent and, in a sense, popular. The young man was naturally drawn towards this better life, so like that in which he had been brought up and in which he knew he should be happier. Yet he said to himself, when he saw the church-goers leaving their homes and going to the house of prayer, and was inclined to join them:

“No; I know I’ve gone sadly astray, but I’m not yet a hypocrite. If I should go to church as if I were a church-going man, it would seem as if I wanted to pass myself off as a well-doer, — which I know I am not.

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I must first get myself right, so that I feel right; then it will be time enough for me to act as if I were right.”

So that young man, who had been trained to both feel right and do right, deliberately postponed doing what he admitted was in the line of right-doing because he had not yet resolved to do right and feel right in all things. His clear duty to act as if he approved of right-doing was neglected, while he hoped that, sometime, he would do right. And in this he made a sad mistake.

His mistake in this one thing at this testing-time led to similar mistakes on his part in many another thing. Even when he had broken away from the evil influences which led him into more flagrant acts of wrong-doing, and sought to conform himself to the limits of well-doing in outer conduct, he still thought that it was not right to go to the communion service, or to a prayer-meeting, or to have a part in any religious gathering, while his feelings were not as they should be. He made his personal feelings on the subject the test of his duty to begin with, rather than his consciousness of the right, in view of God’s commands and his providential surroundings in the church and the community.

Then it was that I sought to show him his error in giving such prominence to feeling rather than conduct in his course of life. As I talked with him on this subject, I asked the young man:

“Did you never feel very angry with somebody who had wronged you — so angry that, at the time, you were inclined to injure your opponent by harming him or by destroying his property?”

“Oh, I have felt so at times!”

“What was the right course for you to pursue — to do what you knew to be right, or to do what you felt at the time like doing?”

“Of course, I ought to have done right, however I felt.”

“Then your feelings were not a safe guide for your action at such time?”

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“Certainly not my feelings for the time.”

“All feelings are for the time. Feelings, which are liable to change, are one thing. Convictions, which are not fleeting and temporary, are another thing.”

At another time I asked the young man:

“Suppose you were started up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night by a consciousness of a fire in the house, that was liable to destroy the building or to cost precious lives, what would be your first feeling?”

“I might be tempted to go to sleep again, or not to heed the first call, for I’m a sound sleeper.”

“Which course would be the right one for you to pursue — ought you to yield to your feelings, or to go against them at the cost of comfort or personal safety?”

“I ought to get up, of course, whether I felt like it or not.”

“I knew you would think so, and in the end you would feel so.”

And so in other illustrations:

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“In case of a public election, what ought to be your guide of duty, — your personal feelings on the subject, or your consciousness of the way the result would affect the community?”

“I ought to act in view of the consequences to others.”

“If a church meeting were to be held for the calling of a pastor, or for the taking of action on a new mission about to be started, and you had a vote, ought you to exercise your right of voting, even though you had been shrinking from seeming to assume a right Christian spirit?”

“Claiming a legal right to vote, even in the church, is different from claiming to have a proper spirit when going to the communion table, or attending a prayer-meeting.”

“Feeling right is your duty; but acting right is also your duty. If you cannot do both, you should do that which you can do. In the long run you are more likely to feel right by doing right, whether you

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like it or not, than by neglecting your known duty until you may feel like doing it.”

“I think you are right about that. I know that when I kept away from church, out on the border, I used to feel that I was losing ground as I saw the people going by me to the church while I was waiting to feel right. I was losing in right feeling all the time. I am glad to have had this talk on the subject. I think it would be better to do one’s duty, however one feels about it.”

Feeling right is a duty, and it ought to be attended to. But doing right is also a duty, and it has a constant claim on one, even if for the time the feelings and impulses run in the other direction. A man ought to feel kindly toward those whom he meets and with whom he speaks. But, if he cannot feel kindly, he ought at least to look and speak kindly without reference to his feelings. A man who fails to act on this principle makes a sad mistake.