is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."1

In the short history of Jonah, we have a striking example of the inconsistencies and perverseness of an irritable temper. Having prophesied the destruction of Nineveh, he became angry that the Almighty should spare it: he was irritated because he knew that the Lord "was a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repented him of the evil." The prophet was provoked, because God was appeased, and could hardly forgive the mercy, which forgave the repentant Ninevites: and so he exclaimed in the petulance and folly of a child, "Now, O Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And when the worm had destroyed the gourd which sheltered him, he was equally exasperated; "And

1 Matt. v. 22.

2 Jonah, iv. 1.

God said to Jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd;" and the prophet's passion so far transported him, that he replied, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." And he sat in his booth, breathing enmity and destruction, and quarrelling even with God for his goodness, and, as it would seem, more ready to fire the city himself, than to suffer it to escape by the divine mercy.

Anger blights affection, breaks the tenderest ties, dissolves the noblest friendships. It is a short-lived madness, that forgets every thing but the pang it can inflict at the moment, and will perhaps repent of in an hour. Its immediate impulse is to injure; and the injury is usually defined only by the power of inflicting it. Hence a man's rage is vented on those that are beneath him, or in his power; on his children, on his servants, on his dependants; on those whose resentment he does not apprehend. His humours are the greeting he prepares for those bound to him by obligations; or

the comfort he affords the wife of his bosom. They are seldom exhibited before the great, to whom he looks up; who can retaliate, and whom therefore he fears. He will curb his passion when provoked by those he dreads; till he can find a weaker object to trample upon with impunity. This debases the angry man, almost as much as the secrecy of coward stratagem does the malicious. And hence it is, that the mean-spirited and pitiful in a struggle with superior force are often the most violent and outrageous to those under their control.

There is scarcely a situation in life, that irascibility does not render a man unfit to hold. At home, one hasty temper may destroy the happiness of a whole family. In the relations of marriage, of parent and child, of employer and servant, the irritable man becomes at once a bad husband, a foolish father, and a cruel master. His peevishness and petulancy chills every disposition to please. His repulsiveness estranges regard; or afflicts

tenderness, if its ties are too strong to be broken. His children fear him as a capricious tyrant; because he does not "have them in subjection with all gravity." He is hated by his dependants; because "he wrests the judgment of the poor in his cause." He injures those who love him; he tramples on the weak in his passion; or oppresses the innocent in his susceptibility of offence.

In public, the scene of his inconsistencies is enlarged. He disturbs the harmony of society, and provokes outrage amid the assemblies of good fellowship. He stirs passions as malignant as his own; and perhaps hurries a noble soul from a world that it adorned, on the pretext of a whisper, or the frivolous resentment of a joke. If his follies permit him to obtain power, he may plunge multitudes into misery for an intemperate expression, or by his hasty interpretation of a word. Many a good man has sunk under perverted justice, many a people has been ruined by oppression, where no

deliberate ill-will has existed, but because the dictates of passion have controlled their earthly destiny.

Men in humble station perhaps quarrel with less deadly weapons: but the same principle applies. There is the same violence; the same anger; the same bad motive; and there may be the same fatal result. At least the same malice, the same desire to inflict injury, the same recklessness of consequences, exists in their hearts as in those whose station and habits have supplied more fearful means of displaying irritation.

The generous spirit may not be always free from anger, and much less from indignation but it will curb those frequent bursts, and cut short that protracted continuance of ill-humour, which is the weakness of less noble souls. Passion must be ruled: or it will rule with a reign of terror. And to indulge the malignant affections, is to make ourselves unhappy, as well as others. If a man stands combustible, and ready to