YIELDING TO ANGER EXHIBITS WEAKNESS.
THE man who gives way to anger in his own behalf is pretty sure to be a weak character. Anger as hot indignation against wrong, or in behalf of the wronged, may be a noble and generous outburst of feeling; but that is very different from anger on one's own account. Anger is generally called forth by such circumstances as disappointment, opposition, reproof, or insult. He who is thrown into an ungovernable passion when things do not turn out as he hoped they would, thereby shows that he is not equal to the situation. His exhibit of anger is an unconscious confession of his personal weakness. The strong, brave man looks the disappointment in the face, and is calm. He expects to surmount the obstacles before him, and to recover himself out of his misfortune. But the man who storms and raves, thereby makes it evident that he lacks confidence in himself, and that he can only vainly talk against the circumstances which he feels unable to master. A man in an angry passion rarely accomplishes anything, except such things as he is afterwards sorry for. Almost everywhere, displayed anger is a hindrance to success. It throws the mind into confusion; it overheats the whole nature, and prevents the best work which the faculties might do. An easy and habitual yielding to the passion of anger is fatal to that coolness of judgment and calmness of temper which are indispensable qualities of strong characters and truly successful lives. Select out of any community the hot-headed men who are frequently heard raving at events and berating their fellow-men, and you select the essentially weak men, who neither win great respect nor carry great weight in the community. Strong men are men who know how to keep cool, or to restrain themselves when excited. Their coolness, or their calmness, is a part of their strength. The man whose temper controls him, incapacitates himself by blind passion for the exercise of that shrewdness and judgment with which the man who keeps a calm and steady mind and manner will surmount difficulties, conquer opposition, and defeat injustice. In no particular is over-excitement more evidently a proof of weakness than in the fact that it shows an incapacity for self-control. There are few men who would not profess a desire to restrain their tempers. Yet how many fail to do so! They are the tool of their tempers, instead of having their229tempers as their tools. They are weak men,—weak in self-control, without which no robust character is possible. They have no proper command of themselves. That which is lowest in them—blind and unreasoning passion—is their master. To the rule of such a master, an enslaved man offers a constantly feebler resistance, until at length resistance practically ceases, and he is the play and sport of his own worst impulses. His is, indeed, a moral weakness, essentially like that of the inebriate, who vainly struggles against appetite until struggle seems idle, and it ceases. The difference between these two is that the appetite for drink has its seat and operation in the body, while the passion of anger is a state or affection of the mind. Morally considered, however, the two are similar in kind, and are equally a proof of an untrained will and a fundamentally weak moral character. The weakness which disclosed anger advertises is nowhere more plainly seen than in controversy. When contestants in debate can do nothing else, they usually show anger. The angry debater is the man who has an imperfect confidence in himself or in his cause. The man who knows his ground, and has perfect confidence in his position, has no occasion to become angry. If men cannot agree with him, he can wait. He believes he has truth on his side, and he is confident that truth will prevail. But the man who scolds and abuses his opponent, and makes use of personal vilification for argument, unwittingly proclaims his weakness and confesses his defeat. Observe any controversy, and see on which side there is the greatest amount of rage, rant, and defamation, and you will find that side supported by the weaker man, while the opposite side represents the ultimately winning cause. Whatever help comes to any controversy from anger and abuse is pretty sure to come to the side against which they are directed. Matters of dispute are ultimately settled by the show of reasons which bear upon them, rather than by fury and ill-directed zeal, which only serve to proclaim the inability of those who exhibit them to cope with the difficulties or to set forth the reasons of the case in question.—S. S. Times.