People generally blame anger as a fault. But
sometimes it is right to be angry. And there is such a thing as holy anger. The
Bible speaks of “the wrath of God”. Jesus Christ was very holy, meek marked
gentle: and yet we are told that sometimes he was angry. “And they brought unto
him little children that he should touch them; and the disciples rebuked them.
But when Jesus saw it he was angry, and said unto them. ‘Suffer the little
children to come me, and rebuke them not.”
When is anger right, and when may we be angry We
and we ought to be angry when we see the weak unjustly treated by the strong, when a great wrong is done to an
innocent man, when the rich oppress the poor, when dumb animals are tortured by
brutal men. When little children are beaten and starved by drunken parents.
These things should fill us with anger, and drive us to do all we can to
protect the weak and help the suffering. Such anger has driven good men to come
out as reformers, to right pubic wrongs and put down bad customs.
This kind of anger is always unselfish. It springs
from sympathy and a sense of justice. And men who feel it are angry at Tongs
done to others, but not at wrongs done to them. Jesus as angry’ with his
disciples for driving away the children; but when he himself was beaten, spat
on, mocked and nailed to the cross, he only said: “Father, forgiven them, for
they know not what they do.”
But anger that rises from selfishness, conceit and
hatred, is always wrong. To be angry with a man because he has hurt you, mocked
at you, or insulted you, may be natural, but it is none the less Tong. It is
wrong because it is selfish. The Bible says, “Love your enemies. But anger
leads to hatred, and hatred often leads to murder and crime. So “Let not the
sun go down upon your wrath.”
Much anger is simply bad temper, and this is due
to lack of self-control. Some people get into dreadful passions about nothing;
and while they are in a rage, they are like madmen, and will do and say unjust
and unkind things for which they will be sorry all their lives. Such are to be
pitied and despised, for they are the slaves, and not the masters. Of their
passions.