Dear Editor,

Last week I took a mini bus on a journey to the city. While seated behind the conductor, suddenly I heard the sound of loud music coming from within the bus. It pounded in my head and vibrated within my heart. Not only I, but others.

I waited to see whether the one (driver) controlling the volume would be discreet in tempering the sound. Then within a few seconds, I opened my big mouth, quietly and said, 'Driver you can do better than that'.

Instantly there was quietness, simultaneously voices behind me were raised, being annoyed at the unpleasant and lewd sounds.

The driver was grumbling, annoyed that his dominance or dominion had ended where that of conscience began. What happened was simple, the words and probably the tone of my voice brought sparks of conviction over his mind, and unable to maintain his position, he just quit the loud, lawless, lewd and ludicrous music.

The inner part of self that speaks louder than the music box, his conscience, was at work.

On a previous occasion, I remember pleading with a mini bus driver to tone down his music, all in vain. This happened over and over again with a blunt stare and a defiled conscience working with an evil tongue saying "If you don't like the music you can get out".

Among all the questions you can ask a man there is none that appeals to the conscience as is it right, is it right?

Guyana Power and Light announces a further substantial increase and high reconnnection costs.

Is it right?

GT&T wants to make a deal with the PUC to substantially increase telephone rates.

Is it right?

Landlords paint dilapidated buildings, buildings that are twenty five years old, and have begun to sink with two or three wooden bedrooms and a little kitchenette and rent them for twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars a month (don't talk about the two months rent deposit as security).

Is this right?

Lawyers that were once magistrates appealing and pleading on behalf of an unscrupulous adult who with a forged document attempted to board an aircraft bound for heaven (USA). His excuse, Guyana is not good enough, and the USA is greener pastures.

Is this right?

Degree holding (qualified) teachers are on an exodus to New York and elsewhere, while their nieces and nephews are in need of what they have.

Is this right?

Again teachers refuse to administer corporal punishment in the class room on wrongdoers and indisciplined students, because of the Ministry of Education's stand on discipline. Now there are brawls, fights, quarrels, chaos and confusion also backwardness among our youths.

Is it right?

Where are the moral minds of yesterday, could they not speak today, before there be no tomorrow.

It seems to my mind, that it is not only the conscience of the mini bus operators that is seared or defiled, but the nation's conscience is on trial.

Someone once said conscience tells us that we ought to do right, but it does not tell us what right is that we are taught by God's word.

Abortions are done in the land without the moral conduct of observing God's law Thou shalt not kill.

Is this right?

Is it right to walk away from God's work.

If we as a nation are guilty then we ought to confess our guilt to God. And renew our conscience with God's word.

J. Newman once said, "conscience is the true Vicar of Christ in the soul; a prophet in its information; a monarch in its peremptoriness; a priest in its blessing or anathema according as we obey or disobey it."

When a nation stifles its conscience and continue in its perverseness, the children born of that nation shall be called 'A generation of vipers'.