"ment." The causes which will justify a human being in entertaining a slight and short feeling of resentment, I have already mentioned; we shall find them, however, but very few, when compared with those occasions on which anger and wrath are improperly indulged. If we look at our own conduct, or observe the conduct of others, how often shall we perceive, that wrath and rage are kindled, even by the most trifling circumstances?. The least difference of opinion, the slightest interruption of our wishes, an undesigned affront, a word, a look, or a gesture, are sufficient to set the mind in a flame; to call forth the most profane language; and to produce the most violent actions. In In a few minutes, the man is changed into the likeness of a savage beast; his mouth filled with oaths and execration's; and his hand frequently raised to deeds of vengeance. The evils which such an indulgence of sinful anger produces both to the individual himself, and to those around him, are too manifest to require description. It is impossible that such a man as this can be happy in himself, for his soul is in the state of "the troubled sea, which cannot "rest; whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Every wicked passion, indeed, when indulged, is an occasion both of present and

after suffering to him who is guilty of it; but wrath, more particularly, produces these consequences. The mind, during the time that it is under the influence of anger, is in the most miserable condition that can be imagined; all peace, and joy, and comfort, are banished from it; its thoughts are dark and furious; and its wishes full of hate and vengeance. Nor is it less wretched after the storm of passion is passed away. When it is again cooled, and can look calmly at the condition to which anger had reduced it, shame and confusion are its portion.. The man despises himself; and feels, that he has become contemptible in the eyes of others. Sometimes, indeed, a deeper remorse awaits him, when he finds, that, in the moments of his anger, he has either said or done wrongs that cannot be repaired; when he has wounded the feelings, or injured the person, of the object of his wrath. He now, too late, perceives, that the curse of the two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, rests upon his head; "cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; and "their wrath, for it is cruel ;" and must pass the remainder of his life with that worst of all companions, the reproaches of his conscience, and the feelings of Cain after the slaughter of his brother; oppressed with a "punishment greater than he can bear." But

the bad consequences of indulging anger and wrath are not confined to the painful feelings of a man's own mind; they are experienced outwardly as well as inwardly, for he loses the respect, esteem, and encouragement of those amongst whom he lives. If he have committed, in his short madness, any serious injury to the reputation or person of his neighbour, the laws of the land pursue him; and fine, imprisonment, and some times death, where his wrath has led to murder, are the penalties which he pays for indulging his sinful anger. But, if these should not be the consequences of it, he will still find occasion bitterly to repent his giving way to passion.

The wrathful man is either feared, or disliked, by all around him. His company is shunned, because no one can be safe in it; for, as slight offences, or no provocations at all, will rouse his anger; and as no man can tell to what length his rage will go, when it is once roused; it is impossible to say how soon, or how much, one may be injured or insulted by such a character as this. The wisest of men saw these consequences of being familiar with men given. to wrath, and has left these admonitions against having any intercourse with them; advice, which all the sober part of mankind

are always ready to observe.

"Make "no friendship with an angry man; and "' with a furious man thou shalt not go;" for it is better to dwell in the wilderness, " than with a contentious and angry person." Indeed, if we wish to live quietly, and "see good days," we must not only avoid all anger, and wrath, and clamour, and railing, and evil-speaking, ourselves; but flee from those who are given to these vices, as we would from the face of a serpent; for inspiration has declared, and common experience confirms what the Bible says, that, "as coals are to burning coals, and wood "to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife." Wrath is " Wrath is "cruel, and anger is outrageous." "An angry man stirrech "up strife; and a furious man aboundeth "in transgression." "A froward man "soweth strife; a violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good." "Better is a dry "morsel, and quietness therewith, than a "house full of sacrifices with strife." The history of mankind, as recorded in the Bible, has proved, that all these sayings of Solomon are strictly true; holy writ gives us many notable examples, both of men who have been guilty of this sin, and of the terrible actions which it led them to commit.

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It was wrath, that first stained the earth with human blood, and incited Cain to rise up against Abel his brother, and slay him. It was wrath, that led Simeon and Levi to slaughter the Shechenites, as related in the thirty-fourth chapter of Genesis. It was Moses's hot anger, mentioned in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis, and the twentieth of Numbers, that induced him " to speak unadvisedly with his lips;"" to cast "the tables of stone out of his hands; and "to break them beneath the mount;"" and

to smite the rock twice with his rod," in anger and impatience; for which action the LORD declared that "he should not bring "the congregation into the land which he "had given them;" but should die before the Israelites took possession of it. It was fierce anger that fired the minds of the Israelites, when, in the days of Ahaz, they rose up against their brethren of Judah, (as we find in the twenty-eighth chapter of the second book of Chronicles,) and smote them with a great slaughter, in a spirit of vengeance, which was thus reproved by the prophet Oded: "Ye have slain them "in a rage, that reacheth up into heaven;" and it was sinful anger, that had nearly betrayed David, when he was enraged, by the churlish behaviour of Nabal, to massacre