you don't hear many which tell you you live in your families to growl, to bite, and to worry one another. You ought to make in your households the outward and visible life-work for this spiritual and transcendent life. There can be nothing too graceful and truthful, generous, disinterested and gracious for the household. All that a man expects to be in heaven, he ought to try to be from day to day with his wife and children, and with those that are members of his family.

It is said of Socrates, that whether he was teaching the rules of an exact morality, whether he was answering his corrupt judges, or was receiving sentence of death, or swallowing the poison, he was still the same man; that is to say, calm, quiet, undisturbed, intrepid, in a word, wise to the last.

A man once called at the house of Pericles and abused him violently. His anger so transcended him that he did not observe how late it was growing, and when he had exhausted his passion it was quite dark. When he turned to depart, Pericles calmly summoned a servant and said to him, "Bring a lamp and attend this man home."

Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed. one another. As the snow gathers together, so are our habits formed. No single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change. No single action creates, however it may exhibit a man's character; but as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements of mischief which

pernicious habits have brought together by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue.

Truly, a man ought to be, above all things, kind and gentle, but however meek he is required to be, he also ought to remember that he is a man. There are many persons to whom we do not need to tell this truth, for as soon as they only think of having been offended or that somebody has done them any harm, they fly up like gunpowder. Long before they know for a certainty that there is a thief in the garden they have the window open and the old gun has been popped. It is a very dangerous thing to have such neighbors, for we could sit more safely on the horns of a bull than to live in quietness with such characters. We, therefore, should form no friendship with persons of a wrathful temper, and go no farther than is needful with a man of a fiery and unrestrained spirit. Solomon said, "He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly."

Our advice is, to keep cool under all circumstances, if possible. Much may be effected by cultivation. We should learn to command our feelings and act prudently in all the ordinary concerns of life. This will better prepare us to meet sudden emergencies with calmness and fortitude. If we permit our feelings to be ruffled and disconcerted in small matters, they will be thrown into a whirlwind when big events overtake us. Our best antidote is, implicit confidence in God.

Anger.

It does no good to get angry. Some sins have a seeming compensation or apology, a present gratification of some sort, but anger has none. A man feels no better for it. It is really a torment, and when the storm of passion has cleared away, it leaves one to see that he has been a fool. And he has made himself a fool in the eyes of others too.

Sinful anger, when it becomes strong, is called wrath; when it makes outrages, it is fury; when it becomes fixed, it is termed hatred; and when it intends to injure any one, it is called malice. All these wicked passions spring from anger. The continuance and frequent fits of anger produce an evil habit in the soul, a propensity to be angry, which oftentimes ends in choler, bitterness, and morosity; when the mind becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and like a thin, weak plate of iron, receives impressions, and is wounded by the least

occurrence.

Anger is such a headstrong and impetuous passion, that the ancients call it a short madness; and indeed there is no difference between an angry man and a madman while the fit continues, because both are void of reason and blind for that season. It is a disease that, where it prevails, is no less dangerous than deforming to us; it swells the face, it agitates the body, and inflames the blood; and as the evil spirit mentioned in the Gospel threw the possessed into the fire or the water, so it casts us into all kinds of danger.

It too often ruins or subverts whole families, towns, cities, and kingdoms. It is a vice that very few can conceal; and if it does not betray itself by such exter nal signs as paleness of the countenance and trembling of the limbs, it is more impetuous within, and by gnawing in the heart injures the body and the mind very much.

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No man is obliged to live so free from passion as not to show some resentment; and it is rather stoical stupidity than virtue, to do otherwise. Anger may glance into the breast of a wise man, but the bosom of fools. Fight hard against a hasty temper. Anger will come, but resist it strongly. A spark may set a house on fire. A fit of passion may give you cause to mourn all the days of your life. Never revenge an injury. When Socrates found in himself any disposition to anger, he would check it by speak ing low, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure. If you are conscious of being in a passion, keep your mouth shut, for words increase it. Many a person has dropped dead in a rage. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," and the example is a good one for our imitation. If you would demolish an opponent in argument, first make him as mad as you can. Dr. Fuller used to say that the heat of passion makes our souls to crack, and the devil creeps in at the crevices. Anger is a passion the most criminal and destructive of all the passions; the only one that not only bears the appearance of insanity, but often produces the wildest form of madness. It is difficult, indeed, some.

times to mark the line that distinguishes the bursts of rage from the bursts of phrenzy; so similar are its movements, and too often equally similar are its actions. What crime has not been committed in the paroxysms of anger? Has not the friend murdered his friend? the son massacred his parent? the creature blasphemed his Creator? When, indeed, the nature of this passion is considered, what crime may it not commit? Is it not the storm of the human mind, which wrecks every better affection-wrecks reason and conscience; and, as a ship driven without helm or compass before the rushing gale, is not the mind borne away, without guide or government, by the tempest of unbounded rage?

A passionate temper renders a man unfit for advice, deprives him of his reason, robs him of all that is either great or noble in his nature; it makes him unfit for conversation, destroys friendship, changes justice into cruelty, and turns all order into confusion. Says Lord Bacon: "An angry man who suppresses his passions, thinks worse than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide, speaks worse than he thinks." A wise man hath no more anger than is necessary to show that he can apprehend the first wrong, nor any more revenge than justly to prevent a second. One angry word sometimes raises a storm that time itself cannot allay. There is many a man whose tongue might govern multitudes, if he could only govern his tongue. He is the man of power who controls the storms and tempests of his mind. He that will be angry for anything, will be angry for nothing. As some are often incensed