Sins of Thought

SINS OF THOUGHT

[Christian writers] seem to be so very strict at one moment and so very free and easy at another.  They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important: and they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven.  But I have come to see that they are right.  What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure—or—enjoy—forever.  One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at.  But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both.  Each had done something to himself, which unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it.  Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not.  The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters.