XV.

The Morality of Temper.

JAMES i. 20:

"The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

THE means of doing good is the most difficult question in Moral Science. It branches into twothe first occupied with the mixed philosophical and moral consideration of what it is good to do, the second with the purely spiritual and practical consideration of the manner and spirit in which it is to be done. Our concern at present is with the last, which for the sake of distinctness we may call "the Morality of Temper." I shall endeavour to establish a principle, and make application of it to some special cases.

Every one has observed how even a genuine Benevolence can fail to accomplish what it intends on account of something unhappy in the manner of the act. In Character, however, there is little or nothing of mere mannerism, of what is entirely outside, having no real connection with the state of the spirit; and the marring manner has its origin in marred and imperfect feeling. In all the action of Character the

expression and its inspiration are in very close relations to one another: they are correspondingly full or feeble, gracious or ungracious. The absent manner shows the absent mind; the inadvertent manner the inadvertent mind; the inattentive, unobserving, discourteous manner the self-occupied, self-important mind; the blunt manner the blunt sentiment, not wilfully rude but actually graceless. Now, when you enter upon an act of Beneficence, the thing obvious to the person you design to benefit, is not the fountain. of kind feeling which suggested the act, for that is hidden in the heart, but the style and manner of performance, for these are the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace. From these he receives his impression of the sentiment of your act, and if these are faulty or wounding, you may raise a set of feelings which will render impossible any serviceable reception of the proffered kindness, or any delightful return of gratitude, and so rob your own deed of all its intended value. Nor is this unreasonable: whether you mean to bestow a fortune, or to correct an error, nothing but pure Love will make either obligation palatable. A man may be excused for mistaking kindnesses for injuries, if they are offered so as to gall his sense of independence; or for distrusting the purity of your solicitude for his faults, if it breathes no tenderness into your methods of correction. We cannot suppose there is oil upon the waters if their surface is in a

tempest; and if Kindness disfigures its own countenance, it must not expect the heart of Love within to be visible through the mask of irritation. There may be much, almost everything, of the genuine sentiment of heartfelt regard, but there is also a mixture of something else which, mantling to the surface, presents that repulsive aspect with which it is hard to associate the belief, and which never will work the effects, of pure goodwill. For a man is never irritated except when he has a personal interest concerned; and the prominence given to the personal interest in the act of irritation is fatal to the purity of his power as a benefactor. For example: to help out of a difficulty, to draw out of a disgrace, one who is socially connected with yourself, and by the manner, the temper of your act, to raise the belief that you do so, not from care or love of him, but because his loss of standing or of character would reflect on you and yours, will only extend to him an evil power over you which, so little will he feel bound to you, so meanly will he think of you, he will not scruple to use against you for his own convenience. The extent to which he thinks we would assist him, rather than be socially disgraced by him, becomes simply a fund upon which he can draw, and, however disguised, is pure evil both to him and us. To give spiritual weight to helpful acts, they must be purely benevolent: so far as they are scen to be not self-sacrifice, but self-regard, will their power for good

be vitiated. How many of us may be complaining of ingratitude, who are only reaping what we sowed, and deserved no returns but what we got! Kindness, pure from all selfish taint, may be combined with the deepest sorrow or moral distress; but, so far as there is irritation, it is always the breaking out of a personal annoyance, a self-regarding disturbance. Grief over another, though unreasonable in its extent and sorely oppressive to him for whom it is felt, may yet be purely disinterested, but irritation never. The unhappy manner, therefore, which is in fact the sign of only a half-cordial benevolence, the expression of a real reluctance to bear certain painful accompaniments of our goodwill, screens the hidden kindness, and calls up a host of ungenial feelings to disturb the cordial and co-operating reception of the kindness; and with these two evil operations it is evident how, even in its mildest form, "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

But something more is necessary to the power of doing good than a conviction of our pure goodwill. This is the clearing of obstructions; and, except for the gratitude which is raised by kind intentions, which is itself a good, the work remains to be done. The only real benefits are those which are conferred on the mind, on the power and action of the affections. It is only character that is capable of being essentially and permanently blessed. He is a benefactor indeed

who contributes to a favourable influence on the independence of the spirit, on the force of manly honour and self-reliance in the struggle of existence, on the life of the intellect, on the simplicity and unworldliness of the heart, on the rectitude of the will. He alone leaveth an immortal impress of his goodwill. He worketh indeed, and for ever, the righteousness of God. But character can be benefited only through an inward elevation of our tastes, joys, pursuits, pleasures and directions-through a growing delight, or conscientious interest, in the energetic exercise of inexhaustible powers; for the powers that delight in truth, and the powers that delight in goodness, are without limit, either in themselves or in their objects. The method of a real improvement, even when we are being corrected and chastened, is never by restrictions but always by an accession of fulness, through the increased activity of some neglected grace or faculty in us. If a man is ignorant, it is not by exposing the disgrace of his ignorance, or even by exhibiting its disadvantages, but by stimulating his natural love of knowledge, that you will do him good. If a man is rude, it is not by resenting his rudeness, but by making him sentitive to gracious kindness, that you will win him to be courteous. If a man is selfish, it is not by rebuking his narrow-heartedness, nor by bluntly asking him to give his goods to feed the poor, but by awakening in him some spring of living sympathy and