| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 4 |
Even the play and the amusement of a Christian are part of his Christian life. They must be as holy as his devotions. We need not wear long faces. Nor need we condemn pleasure. The Master did not. His first public act after his baptism and temptation was to attend a wedding feast, and we know he cast no shadow over the gladness and festivity of that occasion. He smiled on the children’s play – they never were afraid of him, did not run and hide when they saw him coming, as some children used to do when they saw the minister riding up to their house. He was not like the Pharisees who posed as saintly, and made their religion unbeautiful and unwinsome. He wants us to be happy, to have his joy fulfilled in us. But our pleasure, our amusement, must always be pure, holy, unselfish – sacred as our worship.
Some one gives this singular definition: “Temperament – an excuse for character.” A man is gloomy and pessimistic, and he blames it on his temperament – he was born that way. One person always sees faults and disagreeable things in people and in circumstances, and excuses himself for this unhappy characteristic on the ground of temperament. Another man has a fiery temper, which flares up at the slightest provocation. He received the Holy Communion on Sunday and then on Monday was seen in a terrible rage. “It is my temperament,” he says, “I can’t help it.”
All of which is pure fiction. Temperament is no excuse for faulty character, for un-Christian disposition, for ungoverned temper. Because we are Christ’s, we must see that we never dishonour his name by such outbursts. He is always with us, and is grieved when we fail to keep our lives holy. What did you do yesterday out among people? How did you treat those with whom you work? What beauty of Christ did you show in your conduct, in your disposition, in your behaviour? What patience did you exercise? What thoughtfulness did you manifest? What unkindness did you endure quietly? What rising anger did you restrain? Was your day full of words, acts, and dispositions that were as holy as a prayer?
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