Anger Harbored

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Speech ends anger, silence nourishes it. Much malice and grudge would be avoided, and the very poison of it drawn out, did we but give it a vent at first, by reasoning with the party that wronged us, and expostulating the injury, which most times is but a mere mistake. Now many, on the contrary, harbor this viper in their bosoms till it has eaten to their hearts; they not only let “the sun go down,” but go its whole round, “upon their wrath” (Eph. 4:26), and cannot find time from one end of the year to the other to utter their minds and compound their discords. Not only Abraham, but Aristippus shall rise up in judgment against such pseudo-Christians, and condemn them. For when Æschines and he had been at long debate, and there was “I stout,” and “Thou stout,” and neither could find in their hearts to go to the other, Aristippus went at length to Æschines and said unto him, “Shall we not agree to be friends before we make ourselves a common scorn to the whole country?” Whereunto, when Æschines answered that “he was content to be friends with all his heart,” Aristippus replied, “Remember, then, that although I was the elder and the better, yet I first sought you.” “In very deed,” said Æschines, “you are a far better man than I; for I began the quarrel, and you have been first in making up the breach:” and these two became friends forever.

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