But the general principle that _we_ must _not_ bow in the house of Rimmon remains unchanged. The light and knowledge vouchsafed to us far transcend those which existed in times when men had not seen the days of the Son of Man. The only rule which sincere Christians can follow is to have no truce with Canaan, no halting between two opinions, no tampering, no compliance, no connivance, no complicity with evil,--even no tolerance of evil as far as their own conduct is concerned. No good man, in the light of the Gospel dispensation, could condone himself in seeming to sanction--still less in doing--anything which in his opinion ought not to be done, or in saying anything which implied his own acquiescence in things which he knows to be evil. "Sir," said a parishioner to one of the non-juring clergy: "there is many a man who has made a great gash in his conscience; cannot you make a little nick in yours?" No! a _little_ nick is, in one sense, as fatal as a great gash. It is an abandonment of _the principle_; it is a violation of the Law. The wrong of it consists in this--that all evil begins, not in the commission of great crimes, but in the slight divergence from right rules. The angle made by two lines may be infinitesimally small, but produce the lines and it may require infinitude to span the separation between the lines which inclose so tiny an angle. The wise man gave the only true rule about wrong-doing, when he said, "Enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away."[92] And the reason for his rule is that the beginning of sin--like the beginning of strife--"is as when one letteth out water."[93]
The proper answer to all abuses of any supposed concession to the lawfulness of bowing in the house of Rimmon--if that be interpreted to mean the doing of anything which our consciences cannot wholly approve--is _Obsta principiis_--avoid the beginnings of evil.
"We are not worst at once; the course of evil Begins so slowly, and from such slight source, An infant's hand might stem the breach with clay; But let the stream grow wider, and philosophy, Age, and religion too, may strive in vain To stem the headstrong current."