and expect constant temptations and perpetual conflicts. By such means
alone can your character be gradually forming into "a meetness for the
inheritance of the saints in light."[30] Whenever your conflicts cease,
you will enter into your glorious rest. You will not be kept in a world
of sin and sorrow one moment after that in which you have attained to
sufficient Christian perfection to qualify you for a safe freedom from
trials and temptations: but as long as you remain in a temporal school
of discipline, "your only safety is to feel the stretch and energy of a
continual strife."[31]
If I have been at all successful in my endeavours to alter your views of
the _manner_ in which you are first to set about acquiring a permanent
victory over your besetting sin, you will be the more inclined to bestow
your attention on the means which I am now going to recommend for your
consequent adoption. They have been often tried and proved effectual:
experience is their chief recommendation. They may indeed startle some
pious minds, as seeming to encroach too far on what they think ought to
be the unassisted work of the Spirit upon the human character; but you
are too intelligent to allow such assertions, unfounded as they are on
Scripture, to prove much longer a stumbling-block in your way. I would
first of all recommend to you a very strict inquiry into the nature of
the things that affect your temper, so that you may be for the future on
your guard to avoid them, as far as lies in your power. Avoidance is
always the safest plan when it involves no deviation from the
straightforward path of duty; and there will be enough of inevitable
conflicts left, to keep up the habits of self-control and watchfulness.
Indeed, the avoidance which I recommend to you involves in itself the
necessity of so much vigilance, that it will help to prepare you for
measures of more active resistance. On this principle, then, you will
shrink from every species of discussion, on either practical or abstract
subjects, which is likely to excite you beyond control, and disable you
from bearing with gentleness and calmness the triumph, either real or
imaginary, of your opponent. The time will come, I trust, when no
subject need be forbidden to you on these grounds, but at present you
must submit to an invalid regimen, and shun every thing that has even a
tendency to excitement.
This system of avoidance is of the more importance, because every time
your ill-temper acquires the mastery over you, its strength is tenfold
increased for the next conflict, at the same time that your hopes of the
power of resistance, afforded either by your own will or by the
assisting grace of God, are of course weakened. You find, at each fall
before the power of sin, a greater difficulty in exercising faith in
either human or divine means of improvement. You do not, indeed, doubt
the power of God, but a disbelief steals over you which has equally
fatal tendencies. You allow yourself to indulge vague doubts of his
willingness to help you, or a suspicion insinuates itself that the God
whom you so anxiously try to please would not allow you to fall so
constantly into error, if this error were of a very heinous nature. You
should be careful to shun any course of conduct possibly suggestive of
such dangerous doubts. You should seek to establish in your mind the
habitual conviction that, victory being placed by God within your reach,
you must conquer or perish! None but those who by obedience prove
themselves children of God, shall inherit the kingdom prepared for them
from the foundation of the world.[32]
I have spoken of the vigilance and self-control required for the
avoidance of every discussion on exciting subjects; but this difficulty
is small indeed when compared with those unexpected assaults on the
temper which we are exposed to at every hour of the day. It is to meet
these with Christian heroism that the constant exertion of all our
inherent and imparted powers is perpetually required. Every device that
ingenuity can suggest, every practice that others have by experience
found successful, is at least worth the trial. One plan of resistance
suits one turn of mind; an entirely opposite one proves more useful for
another. To you I should more especially recommend the habitual
consideration that every trial of temper throughout the day is an
opportunity for conflict and for victory. Think, then, of every such
trial as an occasion of triumphing over your animal nature, and of
increasing the dominion of your rational will over the opposing
temptations of "the world, the flesh, and the devil." Consider each
vexatious annoyance as coming, through human instruments, from the hand
of God himself, and as an opportunity offered by his love and his wisdom
for strengthening your character and bringing your will into closer
conformity with his. You should cultivate the general habit of
considering every trial in this peculiar point of view; thinking over
the subject in your quiet hours especially, that you may thus have your
spirit prepared for moments of unexpected excitement.
To a person of your reflective turn of mind, the prudent management of
the thoughts is one of the principal means towards the proper government
of the temper. As some insects assume the colour of the plant they feed
on, so do the thoughts on which the mind habitually nourishes itself
impart their own peculiar colouring to the mental and moral
constitution. On your thoughts, when you are alone, when you wander
through the fields, or by the roadside, or sit at your work in useful
hours of solitude, depends very much the spirit you are of when you
again enter into society. If, for instance, you think over the trials of
temper which you are inevitably exposed to during the day as indications
of the unkindness of your fellow-creatures, you will not fail to
exaggerate mere trifles into serious offences, and will prepare a sore
place, as it were, in your mind, to which the slightest touch must give
pain. On the contrary, if you forcibly withdraw yourself from any
thought respecting the human instrument that has inflicted the wounds
from which you suffer or are likely to suffer,--if you look upon the
annoyance only as an opportunity of improvement and a message of mercy
from God himself,--you will then gradually get rid of all mental
irritation, and feel nothing but pity for your tormentors, feeling that
you have in reality been benefited instead of injured. When you have
acquired greater power of controlling your thoughts, it will be
serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from
which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating
circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of
your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously
struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys
you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of
with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have
appeared to her as cutting insinuations or taunts, referring to some
former painful circumstance, forgotten or unknown by you, but
sorrowfully remembered by her, or a wilful contradiction of her known
opinion and known wishes, for mere contradiction's sake.
By the time you have turned over in your mind all these possible or
probable circumstances, you will generally see that the person offending
may really be not so much (if at all) to blame; and then the candid and
generous feelings of your nature will convert your anger into regret for
the pain you have unintentionally inflicted. I do not, however,
recommend you to venture upon this practice _yet_. Under present
circumstances, any indulged reflection upon the minute features of the
offence, and the possible feelings of the offender, will be more likely
to increase your irritation than to subdue it; you will not be able to
view your own case through an unprejudiced medium, until you have
acquired the power of compelling your thoughts to dwell on those
features only of an annoyance which may tend to soften your feelings,
while you avoid all such as may irritate them.
A much lower stage of self-control, and one in which you may immediately
begin to exercise yourself, is the prevention of your thoughts from
dwelling for one moment on any offence against you, looking upon such
offence in this point of view alone, that it is one of those
divinely-sent opportunities of Christian warfare without which you could
make no advance in the spiritual life. The consideration of the subject
of temper, as connected with habits of thought, on which I have dwelt so
long and in so much detail, is of the greatest importance. It is
absolutely impossible that you can exercise control over your temper, or
charitable and forgiving feelings toward those around you, if you suffer
your mind to dwell on what you consider their faults and your own
injuries. Are you, however, really aware that you are in the habit of
indulging such thoughts? I doubt it. Few people observe the direction in
which their thoughts are habitually exercised until they have practised
for some little time strict watchfulness over those shadowy and fleeting
things upon which most of the realities of life depend. Watch yourself,
therefore, I entreat you, even during this one day. I ask only for one
day, because I know that, in a character like yours, such an
examination, once begun in all earnestness, will only cease with life.
It is of sins of ignorance and carelessness alone that I accuse you; not
of wilfully harbouring malicious and revengeful thoughts. You have
never, probably, observed their existence: how, then, could you be aware
of their tendency? Perhaps the following illustration may serve to
suggest to you proofs of the danger of the practice I have been warning
you against. If one of your acquaintance had offended another, you would
feel no doubt as to the sinfulness and the cruelty to both of dwelling
on all the aggravating circumstances of the offence, until the temper of
the offended one was thoroughly roused and exasperated, though, before
the interference of a third person, the subject may have been passed
over unnoticed. Is not this the very process you are continually
carrying on in your own mind, to your own injury, indeed, far more than
to any one else's? These habits of thought must be altered, or no other
measures of self-control can prosper with you, though, in connection
with this primary one, many others must be adopted.
One practice that has been found beneficial is that of offering up a
short prayer, even as your hand is upon the door which is to admit you
into family intercourse, an intercourse which, more than any other,
involves duties and responsibilities as well as privileges and
pleasures. This practice could insure your never entering upon a scene
of trial, without having the subject of difficulty brought vividly
before your mind. David's prayer--"Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth;
keep the door of my lips"[33]--would be very well suited to such
occasions as these. This prayer would, at the same time, bring you down
help from Heaven, and, by putting you on your guard, rouse your own
energies to brave any temptation that may await you.
There is another plan which has often been tried with success,--that of
repeating the Lord's prayer deliberately through to oneself, before
venturing to utter one word aloud on any occasion that excites the
temper. The spirit of this practice is highly commendable, as, there
being no direct petition against the sin of ill-temper, it is
principally by elevating the spirit "into a higher moral atmosphere,"
that the experiment is expected to be successful. You will find that a
scrupulous politeness towards the members of your family, and towards
servants, will be a great help in preserving your temper through the
trials of domestic intercourse. You are very seldom even tempted to
indulge in irritable answers, impatient interruptions, abrupt
contradictions, while in the society of strangers. The reason of this is
that the indulgence of your temper on such occasions would oblige you to
break through the chains of early and confirmed habits From infancy
those habits have been forming, and they impel you almost unconsciously
to subdue even the very tones of your voice, while strangers are
present. Have you not sometimes in the middle of an irritable
observation caught yourself changing and softening the harsh
uncontrolled tones of your voice, or the roughness of your manner, when
you have discovered the unexpected presence of a stranger in the family
circle? You have still enough of self-respect to feel deep shame when
such things have happened; and the very moment when you are suffering
from these feelings of shame is that in which you ought to form, and
begin to execute, resolutions of future amendment. While under the
influence of regretful excitement, you will have the more strength to
break through the chains of your old habits, and to begin to form new
ones. If the same courtesy, which until now you have only observed
towards strangers, were habitually exercised towards the members of your
domestic circle, it would, in time, become as difficult to break through
the forms of politeness by indulging ill-temper towards them, as towards
strangers or mere acquaintance.
This is a point I wish to urge on you, even more strongly with regard to
servants. There is great meanness in any display of ill-temper towards
those who will probably lose their place and their character, if they
are tempted by your provocation (and without your restraints of
good-breeding and good education) to the same display of ill-temper that
you yourself are guilty of. On the other hand, there is no better
evidence of dignity, self-respect, and refined generosity of
disposition, than a scrupulous politeness in requiring and requiting
those services for which the low-minded imagine that their money is a
sufficient payment. You will not alone receive as a recompense the love
and the grateful respect of those who serve you, but you will also be
forming habits which will offer a powerful resistance to the temptations
of ill-humour.
You will not surely object to any of the precautions or the practices
recommended above, that they are too trifling or too troublesome; you
have suffered so much from your besetting sin, that I can suppose you
willing to try every possible means of cure.
You should, however, to strengthen your desire of resistance and of
victory, look much further than the unpleasant consequences of
ill-temper in your own case alone. You are still young, life has gone
prosperously with you, the present is fair and smiling, and the future
full of bright hopes; you have, comparatively speaking, few occasions
for irritation or despondency. A naturally warm temper is seen in you
under the least forbidding aspect, combined, as it is, with gay animal
spirits, strong affections, and ready good nature. You need only to look
around, however, to see the probability of things being quite different
with you some years hence, unless a thorough present change is effected.
Look at those cases (only too numerous and too apparent) in which
indulged habits of ill-temper have become stronger by the lapse of time,
and are not now softened in their aspect by the modifying influences of
youth, of hope, of health. See those victims to habitual ill-humour, who
are weighed down by the cares of a family, by broken health, by
disappointed hopes, by the inevitably accumulating sorrows of life. Do
you not know that they bestow wretchedness instead of happiness, even on
those who are dearest and nearest to them? Do you not know that their
voice is dreaded and unwelcome, as it sounds through their home,
deprived through them of the lovely peace of home? Is not their step
shunned in the passage, or on the stairs, in the certainty of no kind or
cheerful greeting? Do you not observe that every subject but the most
indifferent is avoided in their presence, or kept concealed from their
knowledge, in the vain hope of keeping away food for their excitement of
temper? Deprived of confidence, deprived of respect, their society
shunned even by the few who still love them, the unfortunate victims of
confirmed ill-temper may at last make some feeble efforts to shake off
their voluntarily imposed yoke.
But, alas! it is too late; in feeble health, in advanced years, in
depressed spirits, their powers of "working together with God" are
altogether broken. They may be finally saved indeed, but in this life
they can never experience the peace that religion bestows on its
faithful self-controlling followers. They can never bestow happiness,
but always discomfort on those whom they best love; they can never
glorify God by bringing forth the fruits of "a meek and quiet spirit."
This is sad, very sad, but it is not the less true. Strange also it is,
in some respects, that when sin is deeply mourned over and anxiously
prayed against, its power cannot be more effectually weakened. This is,
however, an invariable feature throughout all the dispensations of God,
and you would do well to examine carefully into it, that you may add
experience to your faith in the Scripture assertion, "What a man soweth,
that shall he also reap."[34] May you be given grace to sow such present
seed as may bring forth a harvest of peace to yourself, and peace to
your friends!
I must not forget to make some observations with respect to those
physical influences which affect the temper and spirits. It is true that
these are, at some times, and for a short period, altogether
irresistible. This is, however, only in the case of those whose
character was not originally of sufficient force and strength to require
much habitual self-control, as long as they possessed good health and
spirits. When this original good health is altered in any way that
alters their natural temper, (all diseases, however, have not this
effect,) not having had any previous practice in resisting the new and
unaccustomed evil, they yield to it as hopelessly as they would do to
the pain attending the gout and the rheumatism. If, however, such
persons as those above described are sincere in their desire to glorify
God, and to avoid disturbing the peace of those around them, they will
soon learn to make use of all the means within their reach to remove the
moral disease, as assiduously and as vigorously as they would labour to
remove the physical one. Their newly-acquired self-control will be blest
to them in more ways than one, for the grace of God is always given in
proportion to the need of those who are willing to work themselves, and
who have not incurred the evil they now struggle against, by wilful and
deliberate sin. I have spoken of only a few cases of ill-temper being
irresistible, and even these few only to be considered so at first,
before proper means of cure and prevention are used. Under other
circumstances, though the ill-temper mourned over may be strongly
influenced by physical causes, the sin must still remain the same as if
the causes were strictly moral ones. For instance, if you know that by
sitting up at night an hour or two later than usual, or by not taking
regular exercise, or by eating of indigestible food, you will put it out
of your power to avoid being ill-tempered and disagreeable on the
following day, the failure is surely a moral one. That the immediate
causes of your ill-humour may be physical ones, does not at all affect
the matter, seeing that such causes are, in this case, completely under
your own control. From this it follows that it must be a duty to watch
carefully the effects produced on your temper by every habit of your
life. If you do not abandon such of these as produce undesirable
effects, you deserve to experience the consequences in the gradual
diminution of the respect and affection of those who surround you.
Should the habits producing irritation of temper be such as you cannot
abandon without loss or detriment to yourself or others, the object in
view will be equally attained by exercising a more vigilant self-control
while you are exposed to a dangerous influence. For instance, you have
often heard it remarked, and have perhaps observed in your own case,
that poetry and works of fiction excite and irritate the temper. You may
know some people who exhibit this influence so strongly that no one will
venture to make them a request or even to apply to them about necessary
business, while they are engaged in the perusal of any thing
interesting. I know more than one excellent person, who, in consequence
of observing the effect produced on their temper, by novels, &c., have
given up this style of reading altogether. So far as the sacrifice was
made from a conscientious motive, they doubtless have their reward. From
the consequences, however, I should be rather inclined to think that
they were in many cases not only mistaken in the nature of the
precautions they adopted, but also in their motives for adopting them.
Such persons too frequently seem to have no more control over their
temper when exposed to other and entirely inevitable temptations, than
they had before the cultivation of their imagination was given up. They
do not, in short, seem to exercise, under circumstances that cannot be
escaped, that vigilant self-control which would be the only safe test
of the conscientiousness of their intellectual sacrifice.
For you, I should consider any sacrifice of the foregoing kind
especially inexpedient. Your deep thoughtfulness of mind, and your
habitual delicacy of health, make it impossible for you to give up light
literature with any degree of safety; even were it right that you should
abandon that species of mental cultivation which is effected by this
most important branch of study. People who never read difficult books,
and who are not of reflective habits of mind, can little understand the
necessity that at times exists for entire repose to the higher powers of
the mind--a repose which can be by no means so effectually procured as
by an interesting work of fiction. A drive in a pretty country, a
friendly visit, an hour's work in the garden, any of these may indeed
effect the same purpose, and on some occasions in a safer way than a
novel or a poem. The former, however, are means which are not always
within one's reach, which are impossible at seasons when entire rest to
the mind is most required,--viz. during days and weeks of confinement to
a sick and infected room. At such periods, it is true that the more idle
the mind can be kept the better; even the most trifling story may excite
a dangerous exertion of its nervous action; at times, however, when it
is sufficiently strong and disengaged to feel a craving for active
employment, it is of great importance that the employment should be such
as would involve no exercise of the higher intellectual faculties. I
have known serious evils result to both mind and body from an imprudent
engagement in intellectual pursuits during temporary, and as it may
often appear trifling, illness. Whenever the body is weak, the mind also
should be allowed to rest, if the invalid be a person of thought and
reflection; otherwise Butler's Analogy itself would not do her any harm.
It is _only_ "Lorsqu'il y a vie, il y a danger." This is a long
digression, but one necessary to my subject; for I feel the importance
of impressing on your mind that it can never be your duty to give up
that which is otherwise expedient for you, on the grounds of its being a
cause of excitement. You must only, under such circumstances, exercise a
double vigilance over your temper. Thus you must try to avoid speaking
in an irritated tone when you are interrupted; you must be always ready
to help another, if it be otherwise expedient, however deep may be the
interest of the book in which you are engaged; and, finally, if you are
obliged to refuse your assistance, you should make a point of expressing
your refusal with gentleness and courtesy.
You should show others, as well as be convinced of it yourself, that the
refusal to oblige is altogether irrespective of any effect produced on
your temper by the studies in which you are engaged. Perhaps during the
course of even this one day, you may have an opportunity of experiencing
both the difficulty and advantage of attending to the foregoing
directions.