g a man's
character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love,
it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it
as one of the most destructive elements in human nature.

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous.
It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men
who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but
for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposition. This
compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the
strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is, there are two
great classes of sins--sins of the _Body_ and sins of the
_Disposition_. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first,
the Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no doubt whatever as
to which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge,
upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one
another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words; but faults
in the higher nature may be less venal than those in the lower, and to
the eye of Him who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred
times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold,
not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil
temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for
destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for
withering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in
short,

FOR SHEER GRATUITOUS MISERY-PRODUCING POWER

this influence stands alone.

Look at the Elder Brother--moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful--let
him get all credit for his virtues--look at this man, this baby,
sulking outside his own father's door. "He was angry," we read, "and
would not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, upon the
servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon
the Prodigal--and how many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of
God by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside.
Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers
upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger,
pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness,
sullenness--these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul.
In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill
temper. Judge if such sins of the disposi