God leaves a trace of Divine refinement on everything He touches. And when we look at His moral government, and even at the outpouring of His wrath, on nation or individuals, there is not a touch of personal revenge, but the highest proofs of patience and tender pleading, and He punishes as if He wept while doing it, and His thunderbolts are bot preceded and succeeded with pathetic accents, as if tender mercy were the garniture in which His fiery judgments were clothed. God never does anything in a harsh or uncouth way. He often breaks the hearts of the toughest old sinners with a touch of gentleness, or a soft sweet voice, or the stroke of a motherly hand softer than the down on an angel s wings. Unless we have clear perceptions of the character of God, it is not likely that we will have a positive thirst for that character.
Vision precedes action.
We must see with our spiritual eye the graces of the Spirit, before we live them out in our experience. So few professed Christians form a deep determination to becoming thoroughly gentle in their nature and life. They look upon a gentle disposition as a beautiful flower which can grow only in favored spots, or as a spiritual luxury, a celestial cake and ice cream, which is pleasant to have in the feverish bustle of life, but not as being an essential staple in Christian experience. This is why so few Christians are really gentle. Many wicked sinners think they cannot give sufficient emphasis to their language without loading it with oaths and rude swearing.