the details of those of daily life. "It is the Lord;" these words alone not only still all complaining, but fill the soul with a depth of peace never experienced by the believer until all happiness is withdrawn but that which comes direct from God. "It is the Lord," who died that we might live, and can we murmur even if we dared? No; the love of Christ constrains us to cast ourselves at his feet, not only in submission, but in grateful adoration. It is through his redeeming love that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, will work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Even the very depth of mystery which may attend the sorrowful dispensation, will only draw forth a stronger manifestation of the Christian's faith and love. She will be enabled to rejoice that God does not allow her to see even one reason for the stroke that lays low all her earthly happiness; as thus only, perhaps, can she experience all the fulness of peace that accompanies an unquestioning trust in the wisdom and love of his decrees. For such unquestioning trust, however, there must be a long and diligent preparation: it is not the growth of days or weeks; yet, unless it is begun even this very day, it may never be begun at all. The practice of daily contentment is the only means of finally attaining to Christian resignation.
I do not appeal to you for the necessity of immediate action, because this day may be your last. I do not exhort you "to live as if this day were the whole of life, and not a part or section of it,"21 because it may, in fact, be the whole of life to you. It may be so, but it is not probable, and when you have certainties to guide you, they are better excitements to immediate action than the most solemn possibilities.
The certainty to which I now appeal is, that every duty I have been urging upon you will be much easier to you to-day than it would be, even so soon as to-morrow. One hour's longer indulgence of a discontented spirit, of rebellious and murmuring thoughts, will stamp on your mind an impression, which, however slight it may be, will entail upon you a lifelong struggle against it. Every indulged thought becomes a part of ourselves: you have the awful freedom of will to make yourself what you will to be. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,"22 "Quench" the Spirit23 and the holy flame will never be rekindled. Kneel, then, before God, even now, to pray that you may be enabled to will aright.
Before you opened these pages, some of your daily irritations were probably preying on your mind. You have often, perhaps, recurred to the annoyance, whatever it may be, while you read on and on. Make this annoyance your first opportunity of victory, the first step in the path of contentment. Pray to an ever-present God, that he may open your eyes to see how large may have been the portion of blame to yourself in the annoyance you complain of,—in how far it may be the due and inevitable chastisement of some former sin; how, finally, it may turn to your present profit, by giving you a keener insight into the evils of your own heart, and a more indulgent view of the often imaginary wrongs of others towards you.
Let not this trial be lost to you; by faith and prayer, this cloud may rain down blessings upon you. The annoyance from which you are suffering may be a small one, casting but a temporary shadow, even like the
"Cloud passing over the moon;
'Tis passing, and 'twill pass full soon."24
But ere that shadow has passed away, your fate may be as decided as that of the renegade in poetic fiction. During the time this cloud has rested upon you, the first link of an interminable chain of habits, for good or for ill, may have been fastened around you. Who can tell what "Now" it is that "is the accepted time?" We know from Scripture that there is this awful period, and your present temptation to murmuring and rebellion against the will of God (for it is still his will, though it may be manifested through a created instrument) may be to you that "Now." Pray earnestly before you decide what use you will make of it.
LETTER II.
TEMPER
The subject proposed for consideration in the following letter has been already treated of in perhaps all the different modes of which it appears susceptible. Every religious and moral motive has been urged upon the victim of ill-temper, and it is scarcely necessary to add that each has, in its turn, been urged in vain. This failing of the character comes gradually to be considered as one over which the rational will has no control; it is even supposed possible that a Christian may grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Saviour while the vice of ill-temper is still flourishing triumphantly.
It is, indeed, a certain fact that, unless the temper itself is specially controlled, and specially watched over, it may deteriorate even when the character in other respects improves; for the habit of defeat weakens the exercise of the will in this particular direction, and gradually diminishes the hope or the effort of acquiring a victory over the indulged failing. It is a melancholy consideration, if it be, as I believe, really the case, that a Christian may increase in love to God and man, while at the same time perpetually inflicting severe wounds on the peace and happiness of those who are nearest and dearest to her. Worse than all, she is, by such conduct, wounding the Saviour "in the house of his friends,"25 bringing disgrace and ridicule upon the Holy Name by which she is called.
In the compatibility which is often tacitly inferred between a bad temper and a religious course of life, there seems to be an instinctive recognition of this peculiar vice being so much the necessary result of physical organization, that the motives proving effectual against other sins are ineffectual for the extirpation of this. Perhaps, if this recognition were distinct, and the details of it better understood, a new and more successful means might be made use of to effect the cure of ill-temper.
As an encouragement to this undertaking, there can be no doubt, from some striking instances within your own knowledge, that there are certain means by which, if they could only be discovered, the vice in question may be completely subdued. Even among heathen nations, we know that the art of self-control was so well understood, and so successfully practised, that Plato, Socrates, and other philosophers were able to bring their naturally fiery and violent tempers into complete subjection to their will. Can it be that this secret has been lost along with the other mysteries of those distant times, that the mode of controlling the temper is now as undiscoverable as the manner of preparing the Tyrian dye and other forgotten arts? It is surely a disgrace to those cowardly Christians who, having in addition to all the natural powers of the heathen moralist the freely-offered grace of God to work with them and in them, should still walk so unworthy of the high vocation wherewith they are called, as to shrink hopelessly from a moral competition with the ignorant worshippers of old.
My sister, these things ought not so to be; you feel they ought not, yet day after day you break through the resolutions formed in your calmer moments, and repeat, probably increase, your manifestations of uncontrolled ill-temper. This is not yet, however, in your case, a wilful sin; you still mourn bitterly over the shame to yourself and the annoyance to others caused by the indulgence of your ill-temper. You are also painfully alive to the doubts which your conduct excites in the mind of your more worldly associates as to the reality of a vital and transforming efficacy in religion. You feel that you are not only disobeying God yourself, but that you are providing others with excuses for disobeying him, and with examples of disobedience. You mourn over these considerations in bitterness of heart; you even pray for strength to resist this, your besetting sin, and then—you leave your room, and fall into the same sin on the very first opportunity.
If, however, prayer itself does not prove an effectual safeguard from persistence in sin, you will ask what other means can be hopefully employed. None—none whatever; that from which real prayer cannot preserve us is an inevitable misfortune. But think you that any kind of sin can be among those misfortunes that cannot be avoided? No, my friend: "He is able to succour them that are tempted;"26 and we are also assured that He is willing. Cease, then, from
Jean Paul Richter.
1 Pet. v. 8, 9.
Thess. v. 19.
The Siege of Corinth.
Zach. xiii. 6.
Heb. ii. 18.
