Rev. John McNeil told the following story:
A ship once wrecked on the Irish coast. The captain was a careful one. Nor had the weather been of so severe a kind to explain the wide distance the ship had swerved from her course. The ship went down, but so much interest was attached to the disaster that a diver was sent down.
Among other portions of the vessel that were examined was the compass. Inside the compass box was detected a bit of steel which appeared to be the small point of a pocket knife blade. It appeared that the day before the wreck a sailor had been sent to clean the compass, and used his pocket knife in the process, and had unconsciously broken off the point and left it remaining in the box.
The bit of knife blade exerted its influence on the compass, and to a degree that deflected the needle from its proper bent, and spoiled it as an index of the ship’s direction. That piece of knife blade wrecked the vessel.
Thus one trifling sin, as small as a broken knife point, as it were, is able to rob the conscience of peace and happiness. A sin is a sin and is very destructive.