A LESSON FOR FRETTERS by J. H. Waggoner

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 25, 1868

A LESSON FOR FRETTERS.

By J. H. Waggoner

PEOPLE who fret, always imagine that they have an unusual amount of trouble, which causes them to fret. This is not the case. The difficulty is in their disposition. Fretting always makes trouble; and aside from this, which is their own fault, they have no more trouble than other people. I will relate two cases, among the many which I have noticed, showing that it is not position but disposition that makes fretters.

I was once called to preach at the funeral of a person who had been sorely afflicted with rheumatism many years. For a long time he had been perfectly helpless, not able to rise from his bed alone, or even feed himself much of the time. If there was ever occasion for fretting, surely here it was. But as the friends viewed the person for the last time, a sister exclaimed, “How we shall miss him; in all our troubles he was our comforter.” Oh! thought I, what a lesson for grumblers! who possessed of health and strength, and generally of the ordinary bounties of life, sometimes of abundance of this world’s goods, are yet ever ungrateful, ever complaining, a curse to themselves and to all who are compelled to live under their unhallowed influence.

I knew a woman who was all her lifetime a cripple; unable to leave the house except as she was carried;

always lifted to or from a wagon and conveyed to her place as a little child. Yet she was a mother to the motherless household; ever busy to do some good, and be useful. Ever cheerful, kind and sympathetic, love and peace reigned in her presence. It is to be regretted that such instances of resignation and patience in affliction are so rare, yet these are enough to stand as a strong rebuke to the spirit of complaint so often indulged in.

The consequences of fretting are deplorable. I can notice but briefly.

1. It makes confusion in a household. Fretters often ignorantly claim that they love order. It is impossible. No fretter can govern a family; they cannot even govern their own spirits, and the best efforts to govern, however skillfully put forth, will fail if there is a fretter in the house. Peace and quiet flee from their presence.

2. Fretting makes hypocrites of children. No matter how truthful and frank a child may be in its nature, it soon learns to conceal when it finds its confessions are not met with love and sympathy, but with fretfulness and scolding. Many a fretful mother has lamented that she had not the confidence of her children, and had lost control over them, and blamed them for waywardness, when the cause was in her own disposition, by which she had repulsed them, and driven them to make confidants of those who would show them pity and kindness in their trials. Many a child has been driven to evil associations and ruined by a grumbling parent.

3. It divides families. No one loves to hear fretting, even though addicted to it themselves. It is a habit so odious, that, unlike all other evils, indulgence in it does not reconcile us to it. A husband will conceal unpleasant news from a fretting wife, and a wife from a fretting husband; and thus, instead of being sources of comfort and encouragement to one another, and bearing one another’s burdens, they learn to distrust, and avoid one another when in trouble. When this takes place, as it surely must when fretfulness prevails, farewell to peace and happiness in the household. They may live together, but there is no longer a union of hearts: their marriage vows are no more than a solemn farce, and the heart aches in secret, mourning over blighted hopes.

4. It tends to vulgarity. It is always attended with a vulgar disposition, but this is not all; it lowers and vulgarizes all under its influence. Refinement and fretfulness can no more exist together, than light and darkness. Fretters are not fit to go into refined society. Their minds are too low and groveling. And as the old adage is true, that “like begets like,” so fretters sink their households to their own level. Few children can conduct themselves amongst strangers with a modest and genteel bearing, who are accustomed to hear fretting daily. “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”

5. It is a prolific source of evil habits, especially of drunkenness. Many a man sleeps in a drunkard’s grave, who was driven to the bar-room to drown his trouble, and to avoid the words of a fretful or scolding wife. And many more, having too much principle to indulge in such habits, have left their homes and families, to seek peace and quiet in other lands, while their wives complain of being so cruelly neglected and deserted, not once looking to the true cause of their sorrows, namely, that “world of iniquity,” the tongues.

6. Fretfulness so deranges the nervous system as to hinder digestion. So authors on physiology inform us. Of course, a fretful person cannot enjoy good health. A cheerful, contented spirit has a beneficial influence on the physical system. Says the proverb, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Fretters shall not fret in vain; their habit brings sickness and sorrow, and by long indulgence they will find enough to fret over. But let them not complain or look for pity. Their misery is their fault. “Verily, they have their reward.”

And this evil, so vile in itself and so fruitful of others, is a very common one, often indulged in by professors of religion, who have not learned that “tribulation worketh patience,” and whose experience under affliction is that of the worldling, not of the Christian. To a Christian, chastisement or affliction “yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness.” It is a habit very difficult to overcome, and should therefore be carefully shunned. “Here is the patience of the saints.” “Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

J. H. WAGGONER.