|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 15
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.
In conclusion, I would remind you, that it may, some time or other, be
the will of God to afflict you with heavy and permanent sickness,
habitually affecting your temper, generating despondency, impatience,
and irritation, and making the whole mind, as it were, one vast sore,
shrinking in agony from every touch. If such a trial should ever be
allotted to you, (and it may be sent as a punishment for the neglect of
your present powers of self-control,) how will you be able to avoid
becoming a torment to all around you, and at the same time bringing
doubt and ridicule on your profession of religion?
If, during your present enjoyment of mental and bodily health, you do
not acquire a mastery over your temper, it will be almost impossible to
do so when the effects of disease are added to the influences of nature
and habit. On the other hand, from Galen down to Sir Henry Halford,
there is high medical authority for the important fact that self-control
acquired in health may be successfully exercised to subdue every
external sign, at least, of the irritation and depression often
considered inevitably attendant on many peculiar maladies. There are few
greater temporal rewards of obedience than the consciousness, under such
trying circumstances, of still possessing the power of procuring peace
for oneself, love from one's neighbour, and glory to God.
Remember, finally, that every day and every hour you pause and hesitate
about beginning to control your temper, may probably expose you to years
of more severe future conflict. "Now is the accepted time, now is the
day of salvation," is fully as true when asserted of the beginning of
the slow moral process by which our own conformity "to the image of the
Son" is effected, as of the saving moment in which we "arise and go to
our Father."[35]
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Zach. xiii. 6.
[26] Heb. ii. 18.
[27] James iv. 3.
[28] Jer. xliv. 4.
[29] Isa. viii. 20.
[30] Col. i. 12.
[31] Archdeacon Manning.
[32] Matt. xxv. 24.
[33] Ps. cxli. 3.
[34] Gal. vi. 7.
[35] Luke xv.
LETTER III.
FALSEHOOD AND TRUTHFULNESS.
I do not accuse you of being a liar--far from it; on the contrary, I
believe that if truth and falsehood were distinctly placed before you,
and the opportunity of a deliberate choice afforded you, you would
rather expose yourself to serious injury than submit to the guilt of
falsehood. It is, therefore, with the more regret that your
conscientious friends observe a daily-growing disregard of absolute
truth in your statement of indifferent things, and, _� plus forte
raison_, in your statement of your own side of the question as opposed
to that of another. There are, unfortunately, a thousand opportunities
and temptations to the exaggerated mode of expression for which I blame
you; and these temptations are generally of so trifling a nature, that
the whole energies of the conscience are never awakened to resist them,
as might be the case were the evil to others and the disgrace to
yourself more strikingly manifest. Few people seem to be at all aware of
the difficulties that really attend speaking the _exact_ truth, or they
would shrink from indulging in any habits that immeasurably increase
these difficulties,--increase it, indeed, to such a degree, that some
minds appear to have lost the very power of perceiving truth; so that,
even when they are extremely anxious to be correct in their statement,
there is a total incapacity of transmitting a story to another in the
way that they themselves received it. This is one of the most striking
temporal punishments of sin,--one of those that are the inevitable
consequences of the sin itself, and quite independent of the other
punishments which the revealed will of God attaches to it. The persons
of whom I speak must sooner or later perceive that no dependence is
placed on their statements, that even when respect and affection for
their other good qualities may prevent a clear recognition of the
falsehood of their character, yet that they are now never applied to for
information on any matters of importance. Perhaps, to those who have any
sensitiveness of observation, such doubts are even the more painful the
more vaguely they are implied. For myself, I have long acquired the
habit of translating the assertions and the stories of the persons of
whom I speak into the language in which I judge they originally existed.
By the aid of a small degree of ingenuity, it is not very difficult to
ascertain, from the nature of the refracting medium, the degree and the
direction of the change that has taken place in the pure ray of truth.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|