By J.R. Miller
What about bad temper? An English writer said that more than half of us are bad tempered. He gave the figures. He arranged to have about two thousand people put unconsciously under espionage as to their ordinary temper, and then had careful reports of the results tabulated. The footing up is decidedly unflattering to the two thousand people who were thus treated. More than half of them--to be entirely accurate, fifty two percent of them--are set down as bad tempered in various degrees. The dictionary has been well near exhausted in giving the different shades of badness. Acrimonious, aggressive, bickering, captious, choleric, contentious, crotchety, despotic, domineering, easily offended, gloomy, grumpy, harsh, huffy, irritable, morose, obstinate, peevish, sulky, surly, vindictive--these are some of the qualifying words. There are employed, in all, forty six terms, none of which describes a sweet temper.
We do not like to believe that the case is so serious--but most of us are unnamiable and offensive, in some degree. It is much easier to confess our neighbor's faults and infirmities, than our own; so, therefore, quietly taking refuge for ourselves among the forty eight percent of good natured people, we shall probably be willing to admit that a great many of the people we know have at times rather uncommendable tempers. They are easily provoked. They fly into a passion on every slight occasion. They are haughty, domineering, peevish, fretful, or resentful.
What is even worse, most of them appear to make no effort to grow out of their infirmities of disposition. The unripe fruit does not come to mellowness in the passing years. The roughness is not polished off to reveal the diamond's lustrous beauty. The same impetuous pride, vanity, selfishness, and other disagreeable qualities remain in the life year after year. The person does not seem to grow any sweeter. When there is a struggle to overcome one's faults and grow out of them, and where the progress toward better and more beautiful spiritual character year after year is perceptible, though the progress is ever so slow--we should have patience. But where one appears unconscious of one's blemishes, and makes no effort to conquer one's failings, there is little ground for encouragement. Hope starts in a life when one begins to try to overcome the evil, to cast out the wrong, to strive for the likeness of Christ.
When a man thinks he is perfect, he is not only pitifully imperfect--but he is in a condition in which no one can do anything to help him. He is unconscious of any lack, and his lack is hopeless. But when a man begins to realize that he is weak and faulty and incomplete, he is ready to begin to grow out of his faults and is at the beginning of a struggle which will end in the victory over himself and growth into completeness of character.
Bad temper is such a disfigurement of character, and besides works such harm to oneself and one's neighbors, that no one should spare any pains or cost to have it cured. The ideal Christian life is one of unbroken kindliness. It is dominated by love, the love whose portrait is so exquisitely drawn for us in the immortal thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." That is the picture.
Then we have but to turn to the Gospel pages to find the story of a Life in which all these beautiful things were realized. Jesus never lost his temper. He lived among people who tried him at every point, some by their dullness, and others by their bitter enmity and persecution--but he never failed in sweetness, in patience, in self-denying love. Like those flowers that give out their perfume only when crushed, like the odoriferous wood which bathes with fragrance the axe that hews it--the life of Christ yielded only the sweetest love to the rough impact of men's rudeness and wrong. That is the pattern on which we should strive to fashion our life and character. Every outbreak of violent temper, every shade of ugliness in disposition, mars the radiant loveliness of the picture we are seeking to have fashioned in our souls. Whatever is not lovely--is unlovely.
There is another phase; bad tempered people are continually hurting others, ofttimes their best friends. Some people are sulky, and one person's sulkiness casts a shadow over the whole household. Other people are over sensitive, ever watching for slights and offended by the merest trifles, so that even their closest friends have to be always on the watch, lest they offend them. Others are despotic and will brook no kindly suggestion nor listen to any expression of opinion. Others are so quarrelsome that even the meekest and gentlest person cannot live peaceably with them. Whatever may be the special characteristic of a bad temper, it makes only pain and humiliation for the person's friends.
Usually, bad temper is accompanied by a sharp tongue. A brother and sister are said often to have passed months without speaking to each other, though eating at the same table and sleeping under the same roof. There recently died a man who, for twelve years, it was currently said, had never spoken to his wife, nor had she to him, although three times every day they sat at the same table. She would serve him with his coffee and he would serve her with the meat--but their glumness never relaxed into a word of courtesy. Bad temper sometimes runs to unyielding silence. Such silence is not of the kind the proverb calls golden. Usually, however, a bad tempered person finds a tongue and speaks out the hateful feelings of his heart. There is no limit to the pain and the harm which their words produce in gentle hearts.
Is there no cure for this? Must a bad tempered person always remain bad tempered? Or is there a way by which the evil may be transformed? No doubt the grace of God is able to make the old, new. There is no temper so obdurately bad, that it cannot be trained into sweetness. The grace of God can take the most unlovely life--and make it into the image of Christ. As in all moral changes, however, grace does not work independently of human volition and exertion. God always works helpfully with those who strive to reach Christ-likeness. We must struggle to obtain the victory over our own evil disposition and habits, although it is only through Christ that we can fully succeed. He will not make us conquerors, unless we enter the battle. We have a large and necessary share in the culture of our own character. The bad tempered man will never become good tempered, until he deliberately sets for himself the task and enters resolutely and persistently upon its accomplishment. The transformation will never come of itself, even in a Christian. People do not grow out of an ugly temper into sweet refinement, as a peach ripens from sourness into lusciousness.
What is it exactly that is to be accomplished? It is not the destruction of the temper. Temper is good in its place. The task to be achieved is to win self-control. The truly strong man is he who is strong in temper, that is, which has strong passions and feelings, capable of great anger, and then has perfect self mastery. The task to be set, therefore, in self discipline, is the gaining of mastery over every feeling, and emotion, so as to be able to restrain every impulse, and never to act unadvisedly. "The best characters are made by vigorous and persistent resistance to evil tendencies; whose amiability has been built upon the ruins of ill temper, and whose generosity springs from an overmastered and transformed selfishness. Such a character, built up in the presence of enemies, has far more attraction than one which is natively pleasing."
Then there is need of a higher standard of attainment in this regard, than many people seem to set for themselves. We never rise higher than our ideals. The perfect beauty of Christ should always be visioned in our hearts, as that which we would attain for ourselves. The honor of our Master's name should impel us to strive ever toward Christ likeness in spirit and disposition. We represent our Master in this world. People cannot see him, and they must look at us to see in our lives a little at least of what he is like. Whatever great work we may do for Christ, if we fail to live out his life of patience and forbearance, we fail in an essential part of our duty as Christians. "The Lord's servant must be gentle."
We never can be greatly useful in the world while our daily conduct is marred by frequent outbursts of anger and other exhibitions of temper. Only as our own lives shine in the brightness of holy affectionateness, and our hearts and lips distill the sweetness of patience and gentleness, can we fulfill our mission in this world as Christ's true messengers to men. The thing in others which irritates us is ofttimes balanced by something in us which looks just as unlovely in their eyes, and which just as sorely tries their forbearance toward us.
If we think our neighbors are hard to live with--they probably think the same of us; then who shall tell in whom lies the greater degree of fault? It is certain at least that a really good natured person can rarely ever be drawn into a quarrel with anyone. He is resolutely determined that he will not be a partner in any unseemly strife. He would rather suffer wrongfully, than offer any retaliation. He has learned to bear and to forbear. Then, by his gentle tact--he is able to conciliate those who are angry.
The fault must never be ours, if there is a difference or a quarrel which we cannot ward off. "As much as in us lies," Paul tells us, "we should be at peace with all men." A wise man says, "Every man takes care that his neighbors shall not cheat him--but a day comes when he begins to take care that he does not cheat his neighbors." So long as a man sees only the quarrelsome temper of his neighbor, he is not far toward saintliness; but when he has learned to watch and to try to control his own temper, and to weep over his own infirmities--he is on the way to God, and will soon conquer his own weakness. We find in the end--that it is ourselves which needs watching.
Life is too short for us to spend even one day or one hour of it, in bickering and strife. Love is too sacred to be lacerated and torn by the ugly briers of sharp temper! Surely we ought to learn to be patient with others, since God has to show every day--such infinite patience toward us. Is not the very essence of true love, the spirit that is not easily provoked, that bears all things? Can we not, then, train our lives to sweeter gentleness? Can we not learn to be touched even a little roughly without resenting it and growing angry? Can we not bear little injuries and apparent injustices, without flying into an unfitting rage? Can we not have in us, something of the mind of Christ which will enable us, like him, to endure all wrong and injury--and give back no word or look of bitterness? The way over which we and our friend walk together--is too short to be spent in wrangling.
