Self-Control by Henry Ward Beecher

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 11, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 27.

Self-Control

By Henry Ward Beecher

I REMEMBER that once a man came to our house red with wrath. He was boiling over with rage. He had or supposed he had a grievance to complain of. My father listened to him with great attention and perfect quietness until he had got it all out, and then he said to him, in a soft, low tone, “Well, I suppose you only want what is just and right?”

The man said, “Yes,” but went on to state the case over again.

Very gently father said to him, “If you have been misinformed, I presume you would be perfectly willing to know what the truth is?” He said he would. Then father very quietly and gently made a statement of the other side; and when he was through the man got up, and said, “Forgive me, doctor! forgive me!”

Father had beaten him by his quiet, gentle way. I saw it, and it gave me an insight into the power of self-control. It was a striking illustration of the passage, “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.”—Henry Ward Beecher.