The Truth in Love

“A soft answer tarnetli away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.” — IT. 1.

HE greatly need an instrument capable of turning away wrath, for there is much wrath in the world to be turned away. It is assumed here that the anger is sinful in character, or excessive in degree; but there are occasions in which a good man may do well to be angry. It is recorded of Jesus once, in the days of his flesh, that He was angry; but the explanation is immediately added, He was “grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Mark iii. 5). It is safe for a disciple “to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” If all our anger were grief for sin, and grief for sin our only anger, the emotion would neither displease God nor disturb men. If our love were like Christ’s, our anger would be like his too. In the meantime, most of the anger that prevails is sinful and dangerous. On that side there is especial need for watching and prayer, lest we enter into temptation. We are on dangerous ground when we are contending in our own cause. A man may, indeed, through divine grace, rule his spirit aright even there; but it is his wisdom to be jealous of himself. Self-love ties a bandage on the eyes of the understanding, and then leads the blind astray. A great part of the danger lies in the suddenness of the explosion; to obtain a delay of a few moments is half of the victory. “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding; but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly” (xiv. 29). Some knowledge of human nature is displayed in the advice once given to a passionate man, to count a hundred after he felt the fire burning within, before he permitted it to blaze forth by his lips. The monitor shrewdly calculated that in many instances the passion would cool down during the interval, and the explosion be altogether prevented. An improvement on that method might be suggested. Instead of securing merely an empty interval, fill it with an air that the flame of anger cannot live in — fill it up with prayer. Employ the same space of time in prayer for yourself and for the offender. Nehemiah adopted this method to subdue another passion. He was oppressed by fear. The Jewish captive betrayed his patriotism before the despot, and symptoms of the royal displeasure appeared: “then I was very sore afraid.” Then and there, however, notwithstanding the monarch’s presence, Nehemiah “prayed to the God of heaven.” Courage came, and wisdom with it: he asked skilfully, and obtain his desire. (Neh. ii.) The same resource would afford deliverance when anger is the passion that suddenly assails. After praying to “our Father” for your offending brother and yourself, you may speak to him safely. “The Christian’s vital breath” is fatal to all the spawn of the serpent. Pass your resentment through a period of communion with Him who bought you with his blood, and it will come out like Christ’s, a simple grief for a brother’s sin, and a holy jealousy for truth.

In some such way should we treat our own anger; but how shall we meet the anger of other people? Turn it away by a soft answer. In man as he is, a sally of wrath from another seems to produce a similar sally in return, as naturally as a mountain-side gives back an echo of the sound that strikes it. If you listen to the quarrel of two men or women who have neither been purified by Christian principle, nor smoothed by a liberal education, you will observe the working of the natural law. Wrath generates grievous words, and grievous words aggravate the wrath that produced them. The reciprocating series goes on, until some accident break the chain, or the sounds die away from the exhaustion of the combatants.

There is an instrument for receiving anger on, so as to make it harmlessly expend its force, like lightning led by a conducting rod into the ground; and even if there be a rebound at first, the force gradually melts away, like a dying echo from a single sound. That patent shield for warding off the sharp strokes of wrath, is “a soft answer.” Christianity makes it of the solid metal, and education supplies at a cheaper rate a plated article, useful as long as it lasts, and as far as it goes. The principle of softness increasing the strength of a defence is common to the physical and moral departments of the world. The Roman battering-ram, when it had nearly effected a breach in walls of solid stone, was often baffled by bags of chaff and beds of down skilfully spread out to receive its stubborn blow. By that stratagem the besieged obtained a double benefit, and the besiegers suffered a double disappointment: the strokes that were given proved harmless, and the engine was soon withdrawn. In our department a similar law exists, and a similar experience will come out of it: if the person assailed hang out in time his soft answer, the first stroke will not hurt him, and the second will never come,

In the effort to avoid one extreme, however, we must beware lest we fall into another: mere softness will not do. The down beds of the besieged Jews within Jerusalem would have been no defence against the battering-rams of Titus, if there had not been a solid wall of masonry behind them. A glove of velvet should cover the hand of iron, but an iron hand should be within the velvet glove. Faithfulness naked, may in its effect be little better than vulgar obstinacy; and gentleness unsupported, may, in the miscellaneous strife of time, count for nothing more than lack of courage; but when faithfulness is gentle in its form, and gentleness faithful in its substance, these two meet helps, made one in a marriage union, constitute the best preparation which man’s imperfect state permits, for meeting rough jostlings in the moving crowd of life. Truth alone may be hated, and love alone despised: men will flee from the one, and trample on the other; but when truth puts on love, and love leans on truth, in that hallowed partnership lies the maximum of defensive moral power within the reach of man in the present world.

There is a contrivance to prevent the destructive collision of carriage against carriage in a railway train, which human beings might profitably imitate. On the outer extremities, where they are liable to strike against each other, there is a soft spongy covering. Within, and at the very centre, is a spring, strong, but yielding; yielding, but strong. There is both a soft surface without, and an elastic spring in the heart If the impact of another body were met by mere hard unyielding strength, both would fly into splinters at the first shock. On the other hand, if there were in one of the carriages softness only, with no recuperative spring, the others would soon drive it from the rails, or crush it to pieces. The destroyed carriage would be lost to the owners, and its debris would cause additional mischief. These machines move in company, like ourselves, and they move quickly, and jostle each other by the way. The managers have marked the danger, and made skilful provision for escaping it. They take advantage of the great pervasive law, that firmness and softness united in each is the best arrangement for the safety of alL

The apparatus employed to keep these mute racers off each other, in the swift course of life, might almost be counted a modification of our great law, “speaking the truth in love.” Although the two departments lie so far asunder, a parallelism is plainly perceptible in their laws. One inventing mind is at the fountain-head of creation, and the so-called discoveries, in the various departments, are so many drops from its diverging streams. It seems a reversal of the usual order, and yet we are assured the rule is reasonable and useful; — observe how carriages on a railway keep their own places, kindly meeting, yet firmly repelling every blow from a neighbour in the rapid race; — observe how they do, arid do likewise.

A little girl came to her mother one day and inquired, in a tone which showed that the words were not words of course, if every word of the Bible is true. “Yes, child; but wherefore do you ask V “Because the Bible says, ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath;’ and when Charlotte spoke to me in a rage, I gave her a soft answer, but it did not turn away her wrath.” It was a natural, but a childish thought. It is true that such is the tendency of a soft answer, — in that direction it puts forth a power; but, alas, that power is often exerted without effect on a callous heart. “The goodness of God,” says the Scripture, “leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom. ii. 4); but many who distinctly feel its drawing refuse to follow it. The obstinate perish unrepentant, and yet the word is true.

The most important practical rule, for our guidance under provocation, is to consider, not how hard a blow we can deal in return, consistently with a character for Christian meekness, but how far we can yield, without being faithless to truth and to God. In view of our own corruption, and the temptations that abound, a leaning to this side seems the safest for a Christian man. But when all rules fail to reach the case, let us have recourse to the great Example. He walked over our life-path, in order that we might have his foot-prints to guide us. Alike in love of good, and resentment against evil, the Master’s conduct is the disciple’s rule.

“Be ye followers of God, as dear children” (Eph. v. 1). The word is “imitators,” and we know what that means in the instincts and habits of a loved and loving child. Our Father in heaven has given us an example, and if we have the spirit of dear children, our constant impulse and tendency will be to do as He has done. This lifts our eyes at once to the deepest counsel of eternity — the greatest event of time. To the enmity against Himself, which reigned and raged in human-kind, God replied by sending His Son to seek and save them. Look unto Jesus, and learn the answer from heaven to the anger of earth. JESUS is God’s answer to the wrath of man. The answer is soft, and yet it is the greatest power that can be applied — the only power that will prevail to turn the wrath away, and win the wrathful back to love.