self-reverence
If you consider, you will find that there is scarcely a sin which does not concentrate into itself the venom of many sins. It is sinfulness against God, whose law it violates; against our neighbour, whom, directly or indirectly, it inevitably injures; against ourselves, whom it tends to destroy. But the reason why every sin has this threefold cord of iniquity is because the tabernacle of God is with men, so that in every act of sin we cannot but sin against Him by defiling His temple, against ourselves by desecrating the inner sanctuary of our own being, against others because they, too, are His living sanctuaries. When the great American orator, Daniel Webster, was asked what thought impressed him most by its awful solemnity, he answered at once, "The thought of my immediate accountability to God." There is a form of this thought yet more impressive — to feel that God is with us and in us; that every sin against ourselves or our brother-man is also a sin committed in His ve...