Rumors of the Lord's deeds reached Herod; At the same time, he immediately concluded: it was John who had risen. You never know what you could think of! And yet he thought of no one but John. Who gave this direction to his thoughts? Conscience. You cannot hide unscrupulous deeds from her, nothing can correct her judgment. By beheading John, Herod arrogated to himself the right to do this, and others did not deny such a right, but his conscience began to speak, and he could not drown out its speeches with anything. This is where John appears to him. How many similar legends do we know, that conscience pursues the sinner and depicts to him the object and deed of sin so that he sees them even outside! Therefore, there is a voice in us that we must recognize as not our voice. Whose? God's. From whom our nature comes, from whom our voice comes. If he is God’s, then one must listen to him, for the creature does not dare to contradict the Creator. This voice says that there is a God, that we are completely dependent on Him and therefore cannot help but cherish the reverent fear of God; having it, we must fulfill the will of God, which our conscience indicates. All this constitutes the word of God, written in our nature, read and offered to us, and we see that people of all times and all countries hear this word and heed it. Everywhere they believe in God, everywhere they listen to their conscience and look forward to a future life. It is only now that it has somehow become fashionable not to recognize these truths. This is what naturalists do, or natural scientists in Russian; This means that natural scientists preach an unnatural doctrine.