Further, in all the petitions we see that the idea of his own single responsibility for the whole thing is uppermost in David's mind. It is _my_ transgression, it is _mine_ iniquity, and _my_ sin. He has not learned to say with Adam of old, and with some so-called wise thinkers to-day: 'I was tempted, and I could not help it.' He does not talk about 'circumstances,' and say that they share the blame with him. He takes it all to himself. 'It was _I_ did it. True, I was tempted, but it was my soul that made the occasion a temptation. True, the circumstances led me astray, but they would not have led me astray if I had been right, and _where_ as well as _what_ I ought to be.' It is a solemn moment when that thought first rises in its revealing power to throw light into the dark places of our souls. But it is likewise a blessed moment, and without it we are scarcely aware of ourselves. Conscience quickens consciousness. The sense of transgression is the first thing that gives to many a man the full sense of his own individuality. There is nothing that makes us feel how awful and incommunicable is that mysterious personality by which every one of us lives alone after all companionship, so much as the contemplation of our relations to God's law. 'Every man shall bear his own burden.' 'Circumstances,' yes; 'bodily organisation,' yes; 'temperament,' yes; 'the maxims of society,' 'the conventionalities of the time,' yes,--all these things have something to do with shaping our single deeds and with influencing our character; but after we have made all allowances for these influences which affect _me_, let us ask the philosophers who bring them forward as diminishing or perhaps annihilating responsibility, 'And what about that _me_ which these things influence?' After all, let me remember that the deed is _mine_, and that every one of us shall, as Paul puts it, give account of _himself_ unto God.