We are inclined
to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as
a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament,
not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating 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.
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