SUNDAY READING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 79

SUNDAY READING.

THE ANGER OF THE SAINTS. “And Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost ■set his eves on him and said.

‘ Thou child of the devil.' ” And the man whose s’onl looked with eyes of flame, and so spake with words of lire, is the man who also taught us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” And indignation is therefore not inconsistent with true affection. Anger is an ingredient in all sterling love. And the same man also wrote that “the fruit of the Spirit is peace ”; therefore peace dues n'ot mean mere agreeablencise, a temper which never takes heat, and which never manifests itself in a consuming flame. The spirit of peace can reveal itself as the spirit of resentment, the spirit of invincible antagonism. the spirit of destructiveness, assaulting the strongholds of sin. Holy wrath is associated with the neacefnl Lamb —“the wrath of the Lamb.” Anger is a part of the equipment of the Spirit-filled life. Now, it is needless to say that all auger is not horn of the Spirit. The equality cf passion is determined by the character of its source, if we would know its worth and worthiness we must trace passion back to its motive, its impulse, the originating well from which it springs. There is a type of anger which can be traced to personal disavmointment; some secret ambition has been chilled, or resisted. or defeated, and anger has arisen in the very realm of broken hopes. Another kind of anger can be traced to irritated nerves; the nerves are raw and exposed, and every keen wind excites them, and anger is always just at the birth, and its appearance has no moral quality and no sacred and purifying ministry. There is another sort of anger which can be traced to a blind conservatism; the soul is locked in small traditions, like a dog sleeping in a tiny hut, and any knock from the large world outside excites to anger and brines forth wrath. This was the anger of the Pharisees in their relationship to Christ. “Beware of the dogs”—the angry, snarling traditionalists who resent any light or movement from the large world. —The Anger of Stricken Conscience.— There is anger, again, which originates in the movements of the guilty conscience. Wells of resentment are created, and they frequently pour out their unclean waters when the conscience is disturbed. luminous instance of this kind is given ns in the story of the martyrdom of Stephen. “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.” Their passion was born in their sense of guilt. Sometimes the stream of anger can he traced to soured affection. Something has happened in the life, and the milk of human kindness has turned sour. There is a settled peevishness, and an abiding resentment which easily develops into violent passion. Once again, the expression of anger can be traced to a melancholy temperament ; to track it would bo like tracing some Scotch stream up a mountain-side into wet, dour, dank, misty moorland. There are temperaments just like that, moody, sodden, saddened, dreary. And they give birth to rivers of resentment and wrath. Lastly, another sort of anger finds its origin in unhealthy self-consciousness. There is a morbid selfalertness, a sleepless spirit of vigilance, an ever-wakeful suspicion that people are personal, that their words are barbed by hurtful intention, and that things are continually being done to offer them slight and neglect. 'This morass of suspicion gives birth to countless streams of bitterness and resentment. And, therefore, with all these possibilities, it is urgently needful that we should examine our passions and see from whence they flow. For, concerning all the types which I have named, the apostle has written another word :—“Put off all these.” They do not flow from the soul that is filled with the presence of the Holy Ghost. —The Function of Righteous Anger.— Let it now bo said that the life incapable of indignation and anger is palsied and insensitive. A life which keeps the same equable temperature under every circumstance, which is untroubled and unchanged whether it pass through fair gardens or through blasted wilderness, whether in the realm of ostentations privilege or in black and reeking slum, cannot be in intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Where the life is never stirred into ferment, where it never culminates in urgent crises, where there is no heat, there cannot be the Holy Spirit, whose baptism is of fire. The life incapable ci

anger is morally insensitive. It has no vital perception of the holy, and therefore is numb in the presence of the unholy. It lias no quiet responsiveness to the just, and has therefore no sharp recoil from the unjust. The passage from one to the other suggests no change of climate; the soul does not realise the startling difference between the holy and the profane. THe life that is incapable of anger is also' indefensive. Fine indignation is like a wall of fire, and noble anger is one of the noblest protections of the soul. The capacity of fierce recoil is a safeguard in a moral crisis. A boy who goes to college equipped with pure and chivalrous anger is armed by his own resentments. A soul that cannot be angry with the devil and with things of devilry is not antiseptic to his approach. The sea of glass is “mingled with fire,” and that element of mystic flame has much to do in keeping the sea pure and clean. —Anger as Reforming Energy.—

And, further, a life incapable of auger is destitute of the needful energy for all reform. There is no blaze in it; there is no ministry of purification. If a city is to be purged from its filth it will have to be by souls that are burning with moral resentment. “1 will purify Jerusalem by the spirit of burning.” it is the man who is “fervent in spirit” who will most assuredly “serve the Lord.” “The grass withereth . . . because the spirit of

the Lord breaketh upon it.” The Church needs more of this withering breath and consuming energy that is born of holy wrath against all established wrong. We are taught in the New Testament that this power of indignation is begotten by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes us capable of healthy heat, and it inspires the fire within us. The Holy Spirit never creates a character that is lukewarm, neutral, or indifferent. Its creations are always positive and passionate. When the Holy Spirit becomes enthroned in the life three things are accomplished. First of all. He inflames the conscience. He cleanses and sharpens the sense of right and wrong. For the lamp of conscience may burn dim like a lamp that needs trimming or fails in the supply of oil. And it is tire blessed ministry of the Spirit to keep the lamp brilliant in order that we may scrupulously discern the difference between good and evil. And. second. He inflames the affections, for the affections can become like a smouldering fire, where there is more smoke than either light or heat. And it is His blessed ministry to feed the affections and keep them bright and clean. And when the affections are strong and radiant, other things are strong and radiant too —pity, holy repugnance, and Christian chivalry. And ,third, the Holy Spirit inflames the imagination. He gives the imagination power to apprehend the ideal, the patterns of things as they might be—“ The Holy City, the 'New Jerusalem, come down out of Heaven from God.” And lire imagination, glorious in the perception of the ideal, can then interpret more vividly the nature of things as they are. It is tHe same apostle who gives ns Hie glorious description of the New Jerusalem who also gives us the most appalling description of the Jerusalem that is. In all these varied ministries, the invigoration of conscience and affection and imagination, there is born the capacity of a pure and healthy anger. Anger that is born of the Spirit is always pure and clean. It is pure in its emotion, it is pure in its speech, and it is also pure in its deeds.