The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1904-02-01
MINISTER JUSTIFIES
ANGER WITHOUT SIN.
Doctor Day Say. Hate of Evil Things
Has Inspired Many
Reformers.

"Anger Without Sin was the SUBJECT o
\ tho sermon preached yesterday mornlns
by the Reverend John W. Day at III
| Unitarian Church of the Messiah. Inc
text was Ephesians. iv, %: BE ye angry
and sin not" Dcctor Day said, in part:
"To apply his injunction rightly is {
task of wise discrimination. for which
perhaps no one is sufficient. To be ansrE
| and yet not sin-the only safe way to ae-
| cornplish this is not to be angry at ALL
There is what may properly be called
moral indignation. but If all the indisna-
ton called moral had been really SO. the
world had long since become perIect-
Enough moral Indignation mas been eS-
| Dendcd to crush any amount of wrong.
That il has awaited SO little must mean
that il has not been so moral as IL seeiiec'
In fact. righteous anger IS senefaily a
cloak with which righteous people cover
unrighteOGs passions. The closer IL Is ex-
amined the less righteous 1t proves. Inc
lest anger is very seldom without SIN.
1T Is reused by some righteous sense
of wrong. but that does not avail to make
il righteous. Very often the anger changes
the righteous purpose into a sense OF per,
sonal injury. Indignation. whose ce!tra!
proyocation is injury to ones self. or
whose effect is to injure a cause larger
than self. cannot be made mora! by being
called so.
Undoubtedly here is a subtle and in
sidious hypocrisy that tricks many a dis,
position naturally far from hypocritical
tendency. Even when the provocation has
an i~ndisputably moral origin, anger is like
Iy TO corrupt it. How many. d good con.
tertion has been lost with the temper OF
its advocate. how many 4 strong cause
las been weakened by loss of seif-Control?
And when the evil We fight IS on the verge
of being overthrown, how often 1t mas
rallied again, just because 1t has succeed
ed in making us angry? Anger tnat is
personal, vindictive and the explosion OF
passion. rather than its utilization. is sure
to be wrong. 1t betrays the weakness OF
the cause which resorts to It. 1t eaken
tie cause which is led into it. and no mat
ter how II may be justified. the excuse
often accuses it the more VINO can say
being a little ashamed OF it afterward?.
But the real problem of the sublect Is
that all such admissions q US not quite
converted to their side of the case.
After all has been said, We keep a
secret reserve in favor of anger. We can
not quite give up that little turn in the
apostles injunction which shows that ne
cherished the saving grace of the same
reservation. In the weightiest manu-
scripts the saying of Jesus reads; lie
that is angry with his brother is in Gan
ger of the Judgment and this IS the rea n
some very old texts. however. the modi-
fying phrase. without a cause appears
and If this was inserted by some COPY
list who thought Jesus, who whipped the
money-changers from the temple. meant
that in some cases anger is justified. there
are few who would not
some sympathy with the copyist. 1t may
be a dangerous thing to say Il good word
fer anger. because in so many cases this
would condone what deserves to be con-
dcmncd: yet if il he true IT ought to
be said. and fair dealing may be just the
perspective which would set the condem-
nation of anger IN clearer light.
You can hardly look at human prog
ress without seeing Illustrations of the
saying, He maketh the wrath of men to
praise Him. for again and again reform
e:s have been stirred TO action and
sustained in struggle. by the anger which
wrongs have provoked. and the inertia of
public sloth is sometimes overcome by
arousing peoples passions through the
recital of wrongs where a deliberate ap-
peal to reason and conscience would be
unIoticed.
I'm TACT. in communities where good
natEred endurance is characteristic. where
pcliteness and urbanity and ~easy-going pa
in Il bad light. public morals may need
nothing so MICH as that some one
should. as We say, get mad and make
the ugly face of evil. which is so brazen
aroused has wherewith to make itself
feared as wei as respected.
1T is certainly so in individual lives.
There Is n kind Of obstinate ;imiability
for which you could wish nothing so good
as that i; had the power to be angry.
a spark of temper would work Il blessing.
There are sins of incidence. of stupid
blindness to real facts. of persistent COM
misplaced charity for w~rongdoiuE. which
only the dynamite OF a Godiy and honest
anger would break up.
The mercy which is tender of them
is by so much cruel TO that which they
main and kill. You have all known cases
where some ores anger was the needful
stroke that broke the idols of folly and
tore off the veil of selfish Illusion"