your absence to be renewed. Or if you are so unhappy as to reside with such persons as are engaged in perpetual quarrels, they will tease you to hear their mutual complaints; and you will live, as it were in a court of justice, and be pestered from morning to night with pleadings.

3. It blocks up our way to the divine throne.If we attempt to draw near to God with rancour and wrath in our hearts, he will not hear our prayers. First go and be reconciled to thy brother; then come, and offer thy gift. No wrathful temper must be indulged, if we would lift up holy hands to God. (1 Tim. ii. 8.) Bitterness, wrath and evil-speaking must therefore be laid aside, if we desire to hold converse with God, and to have fellowship with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ. We are not to expect forgiveness with our Maker, unless we from our hearts forgive others. So far does a wrathful temper unfit us for devotion.Can we come boldly to the throne of grace so long as we cherish wrath in our bosoms? It indisposes us for the duty; and renders it, if performed, unacceptable to God. The tumult of our passions makes us both unable and unwilling to pray; and should we attempt it in such a spirit, God will not hear.

4. It frequently exposes a man to danger.When an angry man meets with a fury like himself, they frequently fall into mischief. A rude

hectoring fellow lately passing through the streets of a certain town, jostled another who stood in his way: the offended party, equal to him in brutality, drew his sword and spilt his blood. It is an honour to man to cease from strife; but every fool will be meddling to his hurt. Wise men turn away wrath, but a fool's lips enter into contention; his mouth calleth for strokes; and he sometimes receives them, as the just reward of his insolence. No one draws his sword, or cocks his pistol at the meek and inoffensive lamb; but the noisy barking cur frequently feels the lash. The dispassionate escape many troubles which the angry and revengeful pull down on their own heads. A soft answer turns away wrath; a soft tongue breaks the bone. The kindness of David overcame Saul, and the meekness of Jacob melted the heart of Esau.

5. It makes work for bitter repentance.-We frequently hear of parents who, undertaking to correct their children in a fit of passion, have been so unhappy as to occasion irreparable mischief to their helpless offspring. What must they feel on every sight of their afflicted children, thus disabled by their fury! What stings of remorse must attend them through every succeeding day of their lives! Who can think of the condition to which Cain had reduced himself by his rage and murder, without horror! Stung with the keenest anguish and remorse, he was a terror to himself

wherever he came, and dreaded by all who knew

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him. He cried out in the bitterness of his soul, My punishment is greater than I can bear! No sorrow can repair the mischief: an age cannot recompense what has been done in an instant in wrath and fury. "There are a thousand evils, (says Seneca) included in this one of anger, and diversified into a thousand different branches."

The greatest part of the disasters which men suffer in this life, are brought upon them by their own ungoverned passions. Should they escape the external mischiefs which these passions naturally occasion, they cannot shun the internal misery which they certainly produce. The government of the world is maintained with such depth of wisdom, that the divine laws execute themselves against the sinner, and carry their sanction along with them there is no need for the prison of hell to be unlocked, or the thunders of heaven to be poured forth, in order to punish the wrathful and the cruel man. It is enough that those furious passions which render such persons the disturbers of others, be suffered to burn and rage within them, and that they be delivered up to the horrors of their own guilty minds. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

6. It prevents us from doing or receiving good. A drunken man in the height of his intoxication is looked upon as so far from being fit to receive

or impart instruction, that he is considered as no longer master of his own conduct. He seems to act without consciousness, and to rush into mischief without apprehension of danger. As such, he is either pitied or despised by those about him: and for the time, is hardly entitled to the rank of rational beings. It is much the same with him who is intoxicated with passion. Such a man cannot gain much influence over any but those who are necessarily his dependants. He may frighten his children or his servants; but if his eyes were open, he might easily see, that while he tramples on those who cannot resist him, he is not revered for his virtue, but dreaded or despised for his brutality; and that he lives only to excite the contempt or hatred of society. He that has his hand against every man, need not wonder if every man's hand is against him. He lives in a state of war with mankind, as he is destitute of that meekness which is the cement of society, that love which is the bond of perfectness, that charity which covers a multitude of sins. In the present state of imperfection, mutual allowances are necessary to mutual usefulness. Without such allowances, variance, strife and contention will keep us perpetually at a distance from each other; and prevent us both from doing good to our fellow-creatures, and receiving good from them.

7. It fires the minds of those about us.-The associate and domestics of an angry man live with

suspicion and solicitude, as in the presence of a tame lion or tiger, watching the capricious savage, and expecting the moment when he will begin his tremendous roar: and when he breaks forth in unreasonable reproaches, it is no wonder that the breasts of those about him are kindled into resent→ ment. Hence mutual animosities prevail; and who can tell where the mischief may end? It is better to dwell in the corner of a house-top, than with such a one in the most splendid and spacious palace. Grievous words stir up anger,

Meekness prepossesses and gains the hearts of our opponents. It persuades when every other argument proves ineffectual; it disarms the violent, and softens the stubborn mind. On the other hand, the heat of anger confirms the opposition it intends to subdue, raises the resentment of those who were indifferent, and even turns our very friends into enemies. A judicious writer on this subject has justly observed, that in the ruffled and angry hour, we view every appearance through a false medium. The most inconsiderable point of interest, or honour, swells into a momentous object; and the slightest attack seems to threaten immediate ruin. But after passion or pride is subdued, we look round in vain for the mighty mischiefs we dreaded: the fabric which our disturbed imagination had reared, totally disappears. But though the cause of contention has dwindled away, its consequences remain. We have irri