My Disposition Was Sullen and My Temper Peevish

T. AUGUSTINE says that he some¬ times saw children still in their mothers’ arms showing selfishness, and fretfulness, and sullenness, and peevishness, and envy, and jealousy. And all that to a degree that made him tremble for their own future as well as for the future of all those who should have to do with them. In a very powerful passage in his Confessions the greatest of the Church fathers tells us that he saw all that all around him to his utter disillusionment and dismay, and to his inconsolable distress. And our Scottish Augustine tells us that he very early discovered all that same original sin in himself, and that to a dismay and to a distress that only grew the more upon him the more he attained to a spiritually-minded old age.

Now the Holy Scriptures, in their own heart¬ searching way, all take us down to the secret root of all that. And the Holy Scriptures, and with them all our deepest theology and anthropology, fully and frankly face all that, and prescribe and provide a cure for all that in their own divine way. For one, hear David on all that in himself. ‘ Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, Thou desirest the truth about myself in my inward parts; and in my hidden part Thou shalt make me to know true wisdom about myself.’ And, for another great authority on these great matters, hear the apostle Paul. ‘ Among whom we all had our conversation in times past, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.’ And there is no getting past this of our Lord: ‘ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Marvel not, therefore, that I said unto thee that thou must be born again.’ And James Fraser, looking back on his childhood, and indeed, on his whole life, sees all that indwelling sin in himself, and he is still struggling with the bitter dregs of all that indwelling sin in himself, when he is composing his so truthful and so wise and so powerful book about the spiritual intricacies of his still unsanctified heart. ‘ I was born in the North of Scotland in 1639, July the 22nd, and was not like to live. But the Lord healed me, and I lived. My disposition was by nature sullen. I loved not to be dawted nor to wear gaudy clothes. Nor had my parents any pleasant tales to tell about me; such tales as fond parents are wont to tell about their children. For, though my parents were fond of me, yet my temper was so peevish that I was no dawtie. Even at this early time I showed plainly that I had a heart to do evil. Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.’

‘ My disposition was sullen.’ That is to say, he was naturally what we call a sulky child. And even after he became a man he was still what we call sullen and churlish, and not very easy to live with. Like Nabal in the Bible, Fraser was sour-hearted, bad-tempered, and obstinate; he was a mule rather than a man. By this time Fraser had become what our Lord demanded that Nicodemus must become, and what He still demands that we must all become, that is to say he had become born again. But new birth and all, Fraser all the more felt within himself as if he was to be doomed to carry to his grave the inborn mule that was in him; that inborn mule which even the new birth itself had not as yet been able to cast out. You have all seen children like little Fraser. You have all known grown-up men like the Laird of Brea. Nay, you may quite possibly be one of those sad men yourself. Yes; in the name of God see and make sure how you stand yourself in this respect of churlishness and sullenness of heart. Look well into James Fraser’s glass and see. Look well into your wife’s eyes, a still better glass, on occasion, and see. But for fear that you may not have honesty enough nor clear-headedness enough to look into that glass and to read home to your own conscience and your own heart what is to be seen in that glass, I will take the privilege and the opportunity of the pulpit, and I will tell you what is seen of God in her eyes many a secret day and many a secret night because of your sullenness, and churlishness, and mulish ness toward her and hers. I find this written about you and the like of you in an honest old book that you are not likely to have bought, and therefore I will borrow your portrait from it so that your salvation from your sullenness may cost you nothing. Here, then, is your portrait taken from life; if so be: ‘ When old Sullenheart was a young man, and when he fell in love, he was as soft as butter and as sweet as honey. His old school and college friends that he was wont so to trample upon scarcely recognised him now. They had sometimes seen very bad men converted, but they had never seen such a sudden and such a complete conversion as this. For their proverb of sourness and sullenness and mulishness was now a new creature. All old things had suddenly passed away, and all things had suddenly become new. For a time. But time passes. And time passed with our mule also. Till there gradually but surely came back to him all his old bad heart and all his old bad life, and more. And till, when long enough time had elapsed, he was found to be more mulish and more sour and more sullen than ever before. He would still be affable, and accessible, and entertaining, the best of company and the soul of it, abroad. But instantly on his return to his own house he would relapse into his mulishness, and would sink back into more than his native sullen¬ ness. He would swallow his meals in silence, and then would sit all night with a cloud out of nothing on his brow. Nothing would please him. He found nothing at home to his mind. The furniture, the hours of the house, the habits of the house, were all disposed in order to please him. But he was never heard to say to his wife or to his child or to his servant that he was ever pleased. He never admitted that a meal was cooked and served to his taste, or a seat set to shelter and repose him. And all the time it was not that he did not honour and even love his household, in a way. It was allowing to his ineradicable sullenness. It was allowing to the unconquerable and inexpugnable mule that was dwelling in him.’ Now, honestly, do any of you long- married men recognise yourselves in that, or in any part of that I am quite sure that some of you do.

But to go on with Fraser of Brea. It is written in the Book of the Intricacies of his heart and his life that he was out in his parish visiting his people one day. And toward the end of the day he rode his pony up to the door of one of his elders to have a conference with him about some of the people in his district. All the time of the conversation the elder sat fondling a pet dog, to which he paid far more attention than to his minister. And when toward the end of the interview his wife came into the room to give them tea, and when she ventured a word or two into the conversation, he turned a look on her, with a snarl, such that some of you wives have sometimes heard at home. Fraser rode back to his manse that night with some long halts by the way. ‘ After all my evangelical preaching,’ he said to himself, ‘and after all our communion seasons together, to see an elder of mine such a brute at home as that! ’ Till, as his pony sometimes stood still, and sometimes walked slowly, not understand¬ ing exactly what her muttering master wanted her to do, Fraser began to see that it was a case of like minister like elder; at any rate, in the matter of mulishness and sullen-heartedness at home. The minister was much later than was his wont in arriving at the manse door that night. But his whole household ever after connected with that late night a great change in the head of the house. And a sermon he preached next Sabbath, and — if I am not mistaken — on the very text of this evening, was so conspicuously blessed to that mulish elder that his household also took immediate remark of this absolute miracle. Never despair of yourself, O son of Nabal in Maon! O son of James Fraser of Brea and of his elder! And you wives like Abigail, and you children and servants of hers, never wholly despair of a husband, or of a father, or of a master, as long as you have their conscience, and their Saviour, and their Sanctifier on your side. And when you are tempted to go apart to weep over your evil lot, weep as much as you like in secret, but always call James Fraser and his Nabal-like elder to mind, and never allow yourselves wholly to despair.

But the total ruin of the happiness of a house¬ hold does not always come from the husband’s side of the house. ‘ Curse God, and die! ’ were the peevish words of a peevish wife on one occasion to a much-suffering husband. Now, peevishness is just a man’s sullenness in a woman. Peevishness is just sullenness somewhat watered and weakened down. But a weak passion as it is, peevishness is not any the less ruinous to multitudes of miserable homes among us. I do not find Fraser saying much about peevishness among the wives and mothers and mistresses of his parish. The strength and the depth and the devoutness of the Highland character may perhaps account for that. But Bishop Butler spent his pastorate among the more effeminate English of the south, and this is how he describes some women and some households in his diocese. ‘ I mention peevishness with pity,’ he says. ‘ With real pity for the unhappy people, who from their inferior station or other circumstances and relationships are obliged to be in the way of peevish¬ ness, and thus to serve for a supply and an occasion to it. Peevishness languidly discharges itself upon everybody that comes in its way. Beal peevishness is continually discharging itself upon something or some one.’ And the great moralist greatly pities the husbands and the children and the servants of the peevish women whom he knew so well, and had watched so closely, till he made them so much material for one of his most powerful sermons.

But, now, the true point of all that is this: How are you and I ever to be completely cured of our sullen disposition and our peevish temper For all that about Nabal, and about Brea and his elder, and about Butler and his diocese, it is all written for our learning. Well, my brethren, our cure, yours and mine, will begin when we begin to be truly troubled about ourselves in all these matters. And the cure will be more than half accomplished when we begin to be evangelically troubled about ourselves like James Fraser of Brea. That is to say,’ when we watch ourselves in everything of that kind, and then go immediately and directly to Jesus Christ about ourselves. Claim, then, Christ’s help on the spot, in all these matters, my brethren. Claim your right to be made like Him, and especially like Him in His disposition and His temper and His behaviour at home. And He will hear you and will help you in that. He is bound to help you. Till you will live to take rank with Fraser and with his elder as a mule that has been changed into a lamb, and as a perfect Nabal who has been changed into a Christian gentleman.

And then every day, and all the day, live and act and speak and look everywhere, and to every one, as you prayed to do in the morning. For one thing — practise appreciation and praise in your thoughts and in your words and in your looks, and especially at home. Nabal never said a single word of praise to Abigail after they were married. He never said to her what the Bible says about her, that she was a woman of a sound understanding, or that she was of a beautiful countenance, or that she was always well dressed when he came home from the field, or that she managed his house well, or that she brought up his children well, or had been God’s best blessing to him ever since he first saw her sweet face. Never once nowadays did Nabal smile upon Abigail, or take her by the hand, or speak a word of true love to her heart. Nabal was his name and Nabal was his nature. And both his name and his nature are written for our learning.

And now I will sum up all this to you and to myself in this one word. Be no more, after to-night, a mule at home. But be frank and hearty and generous in your appreciations and in your praises, and especially at home. If your wife is dressed to your taste, say so. If your dinner is cooked and served up to your taste, say so. If your sour and sullen soul ever gets doctrine, and reproof, and correction, and instruction in righteousness from a sermon, say so. If a good book has ever been an epoch in your selfish and sullen life, write to its author and say so. The size and the substance and the spirit of a man’s soul is at once seen by the spontaneity and the generosity and the exuberance and the warmth of his praises. Just as the small¬ ness and the stinginess and the sullenness and the mulishness of another man’s soul is all disclosed to us by his despicable ingratitude to all his bene¬ factors. Almighty God Himself inhabits the praises of Israel. And to praise, and with your whole heart, all those men and women and children who deserve praise at your hands; that, already, is a certain contribution toward your praise of God. Nabal, the mule of Maon, praised neither God nor man nor wife nor child nor servant nor prophet nor psalmist. Whereas, David did nothing else. Be you all so many Davids in this matter of praise, my brethren. And practise every day upon your fellow men so that you may attain at last to praise God aright, and with acceptance: God who is supremely worthy to be praised.