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ANGER

Anger is wrong when it is fired by the lower passions. Most men are angry when their own interests are assailed, but bear with great patience wrongs inflicted upon others. Anger fired by self-love, or self-conceit, or self-will, is always despicable. But anger fired by the higher impulses is noble, manly, divine. The ancient prophets were angered when they heard the name of God blasphemed. “I count the enemies of God my enemies,” said David; “I hate them with a perfect hatred.” The spirit which flushes with resentment at an oath is better by far than the spirit which listens with indifference, or which laughs with pleasure. “Abhor that which is evil” says the divine command; and no man is safe unless he does. Every child should have such a chivalric sense of the purity of true womanhood that the salacious story, the illicit jest, the noisome scandal, should arouse his wrath against the teller of it. A moral discord should awaken resentment in a well-educated conscience, as a musical discord awakens resentment in a well educated ear. The wrath of self-esteem, of approbativeness, of acquisitiveness, is dangerous and degrading. But it is both dangerous and degrading to be without a wrath of conscience, of reverence, of faith and of love. The wrath of love? Aye! the wrath of love. This is the divinest and hottest wrath of all. This is the wrath of the Lamb which will consume the world’s dross in the day when it is purified so as by fire. Do not teach your children never to be angry; but teach them how to “be angry and sin not.”—Eph. 4:26.

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— December, 1890 —