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Importance of Self-Government
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have a work to do to die to self and to cultivate a spirit of forbearance
and patience. Get over the idea that you are not used right, that you
are wronged, that somebody wants to crowd or harm you. You see
through false eyes. Satan leads you to take these distorted views of
things.
Dear Brother P, at Adams Center your case was again shown me.
I saw that you had ever failed to exercise true self-government. You
have made efforts; but these efforts have only reached the external,
they have not touched the spring of action. Your hasty temper often
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causes you sincere and painful regret and self-condemnation. This
passionate spirit, unless subdued, will increase to a peevish, fault-
finding spirit; indeed, this is already upon you in a degree. You will
be ready to resent everything. If jostled upon the sidewalk, you will
be offended, and a word of complaint will spring to your lips. When
driving in the street, if full half the road is not given you, you will
feel stirred in a moment. If asked to put yourself out of your course
to accommodate others, you will chafe and fret, and feel that your
dignity is imposed upon. You will show to all your besetting sin.
Your very countenance will indicate an impatient spirit, and your
mouth will seem always ready to utter an angry word. In this habit,
as in tobacco using, total abstinence is the only sure remedy. An
entire change must take place in you. You frequently feel that you
must be more guarded. You resolutely say, “I will be more calm and
patient;” but in doing this you only touch the evil on the outside;
you consent to retain the lion and watch him. You must go further
than this. Strength of principle alone can dislodge this destroying
foe and bring peace and happiness.
You have repeatedly said: “I can’t keep my temper.” “I have to
speak.” You lack a meek, humble spirit. Self is all alive, and you
stand guard continually to preserve it from mortification or insult.
Says the apostle: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ
in God.” Those who are dead to self will not feel so readily and will
not be prepared to resist everything which may irritate. Dead men
cannot feel. You are not dead. If you were, and your life were hid in
Christ, a thousand things which you now notice, and which afflict
you, would be passed by as unworthy of notice; you would then be
grasping the eternal and would be above the petty trials of this life.
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