Atrocity

“ In disposition he is mild and affable, but when roused to indignation, his keen eyes glitter and flash, the muscles of his large mouth work convulsively, and he looks the very impersonation of the spirit of evil. He is implacable in anger, and bitter in revenge ”

“ In the abyss of evil into which I am plunged, I feel the blows reach me, without perceiving the hand by which they are directed or the means it employs. Shame and misfortune seem of themselves to fall upon me. ”

“ Men have been thy victims: now take the due reward of all thy wickedness. What art thou, that I should have idolized and gazed with rapture on that form?—something even more treacherous and perverted than myself. ”

“ Proceed evil thoughts, &c. As from a fountain water bursts forth, so from the heart i.e., from the will, when it is depraved by luxury, or imbued with anger, there flow out evil thoughts of lust, or revenge. ”

“ An injury, an offence, like that black blood gradually takes on all the colors,--hate, contempt, anger, self-pity, pain at the wrong, a desire to return evil for evil, and again to let all go to wreck and ruin. ”

“ No other principle, or passion, hath for its end the misery of our fellow-creatures. But malice and revenge meditates evil itself; and to do mischief, to be the author of misery, is the very thing which gratifies the passion: this is what it directly tends towards, as its proper design. ”

“ I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crow-footed eyes if I wanted to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certain forms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed by resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to the body. ”

“ And hence it is that these deluded wretches, following the false light of carnal wisdom, are not only deceived themselves, but are the means of involving others in the same ruin. They, on the contrary, whose minds have been enlightened by the true and eternal light, are struck with [pg 033] horror and surprise whenever they cast their eyes upon the pomps and vanities of this world, upon the ambition and pride, the wrath and revenge, the intemperance and voluptuousness, and the other fruits of the carnal life which universally abound. ”

“ Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests. ”

“ But I did feel that if at that moment any of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur among us; had I heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness of any of these things with the scene I had just quitted would indeed have been most intensely painful. And why? ”

“ Could we but have the heart of the wicked laid open before us; could we but see how it is torn and wrung by the evil passions that harbour within it; could we but mark how, even in the strongest and most determined breast, when bent upon evil purposes, or engaged in wicked acts, fear and apprehension go hand in hand with every deed of evil, while repentance, remorse, and punishment follow more slowly, though not less surely, in the distance ”

“ The millstones of envy and malice are weighing down that mortal mind to the depths of its evil nature, where the cankering chains of sin will hold it until suffering balances the account, loosens their cold clasp, subdues the perverse will, and quenches in agony the fires of remorse. Aggravation of error foretells its doom, repeating the pagan opinion, “Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.” ”

“ This horror will be still stronger when for the habitual hatred, anger, and desire for revenge, that the presence of a criminal now causes us, shall be substituted by degrees a feeling of pity—the pity which we feel for inferior or malformed beings, for the unconscious monstrosities of nature. ”

“ Some experience, which would be nothing but a hideous cruelty and outrage to ask too closely about—one, perhaps, which he could, even if he would, poor fellow, give no account of—has put him temporarily at the world’s mercy. ”

“ Again, if we confine our attention to the hero, and to those cases where the gross and palpable evil is not in him but elsewhere, we find that the comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or defect,—irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive simplicity, excessive susceptibility to sexual emotions, and the like. These defects or imperfections are certainly, in the wide sense of the word, evil, and they contribute decisively to the conflict and catastrophe. ”

“ If they are offended, who has offended them? If thou art now abandoned, may it not be from necessity, or from accident? When thou hast inflicted upon them the severe pain of harbouring anger against what is so dear to them, wouldst thou load them with regret that they manifested any sensibility of thy errours? Hast thou plunged thy house in calamity, and will no worthier wish occur to thee, than to leave it to its sorrows and distress, with the aggravating pangs of causing thy afflicting, however blamable self-desertion? ”

“ In former days it was—"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." What is the fruit of the spirit of evil? Envy, malice, hatred, evil-speaking, lying and slandering one another and towards other people. ”

“ Even all the worst passions flow from the same source. For, what is hatred, malice, and revenge, but gratifying vicious appetites? And fear and cowardice are only struggles in nature to avoid evils to ourselves. ”

“ If you have slandered, given place to envy or jealousy, or have indulged in backbiting, evil speaking, fault-finding, criticising, or have used an evil influence concerning your brother or sister, the Spirit will say to you, "Go and make that right, ask your friends who have suffered by your folly to be merciful to you and to let your fault be buried." ”

“ Every husband, every father, every brother, feared and loathed him as the incarnation of the Evil one—in their mean, narrow, tedious nauseating philosophy they held him as a perjured villain of the deepest dye, steeped in utterest infamy! ”

“ But by such numbers either attempting or committing mischief upon themselves or others, it is evident that the disagreeable, turbulent, malevolent, and desponding passions do often predominate; there is more of the jarring and discordant than of the harmonick notes and keys: some maniacks are distracted with malevolence, antipathy, animosity, rancour, and revenge. ”

“ In an age of license to all sorts of vanity and wickedness, as lust, gluttony, avarice, envy, ambition, sloth, insolence, levity, contumacy, fear, rashness, private discords and public evils, extravagant and groundless wishes, vain confidences, sickly affections, shameless impieties, rapine authorized, and the violation of all things, sacred and profane: obligations are pursued with sword and poison; benefits are turned into crimes, and that blood most seditiously spilt for which every honest man should expose his own. ”

“ If so, how wretched, at times, must the indulgence of this temper render you! When reason, awhile suspended, resumes its empire, and calm reflection succeeds the riot of passion, how severe must be your self-condemnation, and how keen your sensations of regret! Perhaps an unkindness of expression to some particular friend, disrespectful treatment of an honored superior, ill-timed resentment to a beloved equal, or imperious and unbecoming severity to a deserving inferior, may give you the most painful emotions, and degrade you in your own, as well as in the estimation of every observer! ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ Error succeeds error—outrage follows upon outrage—and bitterness increases like a torrent whose embankments have given way. Who can define the termination of these ravages? Will not the tender and affectionate woman, whose love man may endeavour to stifle by coldness or neglect, perish in the ruin? ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”

“ Whereas it is said all malice, all guile, learn, That one sin, not laid aside, will hinder our spiritual profit and everlasting welfare. (4.) Malice, envy, hatred, hypocrisy, and evil-speaking, generally go together. Evil-speaking is a sign that malice and guile lie in the heart ”

“ If one looks closely, one finds that the truly marvellous things are those which happen to us every day, and that duels, dagger thrusts, even automobile accidents, with accompanying hatred, jealousy, betrayed love, and treachery, are in reality the vulgar incidents in the enormous drama of our common life from birth to death. ”

“ To be treated by your philosophy with rudeness and contempt, because you yield to [Pg 149] emotions which are as natural, and, therefore, in my judgment, as innocent as any, is, as if one were struck with violence by a friend or a parent, to whom you fled for protection or comfort. ”

“ All the petty annoyances of life—a sudden fall, an unlucky [pg 103] word, a headache, a paltry quarrel—were set down to the agency of fiends; and all the fierce emotions that rend the mind—love, hate, jealousy, and madness—were equally the work of these invisible tormentors. Men and women stood in constant danger of them. ”

“ Who can tell the countless temptations to evil which flow in from a neglected, disordered, deranged nervous system,—temptations to anger, to irritability, to selfishness, to every kind of sin of appetite and passion? ”

“ This irrepressible delight and interest in the active life of the world, what could it be but the tendency to evil, most strongly developed? These heart-burnings whenever she witnessed men and women rejoicing in the exercise of their natural affections, what could that be but the proneness to evil in its grossest form? ”

“ He felt now the smarting anger, the outraged vanity of the wrong-doer who, having argued down his own conscience, and believing he has blinded others as himself, suddenly finds that himself and his motives are naked before the world. ”

“ I only grant so much—namely, that cruelty now becomes more refined, and its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste; but the wounding and torturing by word and look reaches its highest development in times of corruption,—it is now only that wickedness is created, and the delight in wickedness. ”

“ We see it productive, where it is habitually resorted to, of a frivolous levity, of vanity and pride, and of a littleness of mind and character. We see it also frequently becoming the occasion of the excitement of the malevolent passions, such as anger, envy, hatred, jealousy, malice, and revenge. ”

“ You have endeavoured to put a brand of shame upon a man who never, consciously, was guilty of a dishonourable action in his life."
"Well, and how do you feel?"
"Feel! God forgive me, but I feel as though I should like to kill you." ”

“ All harshness and severity of judgment, all angry looks, resentful feelings, and evil speaking, all impatience, discontent, discord and moroseness, should be banished thence as so many malignant fiends. ”

“ To reason, justify, to apotheosize evil, to establish its ritual, to show the excellence of it—is this not worse than to commit it? To adore the demon, or love evil, the abstract or the concrete term of one and the same fact. ”

“ Fell retribution, like a sleuth-hound, still The footsteps of the wicked sternly tracks, And in his mad career o'ertaking him, Brings, when he least expects it, swift destruction, And with a bitter, mocking justice, marks Each sin that did most easily beset him. ”

“ Believe me, you attach too much consequence to hasty and half-comprehended expressions, uttered, as he avers, to appease the offended vanity of an angry and implacable—ay, and dangerous woman. There are few things a man will not say for such a purpose. He went too far in his anxiety to conciliate malice, and allay an evil temper. ”

“ In the foregoing verse the thoughts of the wicked and righteous were compared; here their words, and those are as the abundance of the heart is. 1. Wicked people speak mischief to their neighbours; and wicked indeed those are whose words are to lie in wait for blood; their tongues are swords to those that stand in their way, to good men whom they hate and persecute. ”

“ We are told that the numerous charms hung about them are to ward off the “evil eye”—rather a necessary precaution, when we see the little innocents in close contact with vice in its most rampant form, or such a scene as that before us. ”

“ Here is another caution against wrath and anger, with further advice to mutual love and kindly dispositions towards each other, v. 31, 32. By bitterness, wrath, and anger, are meant violent inward resentment and displeasure against others: and, by clamour, big words, loud threatenings, and other intemperate speeches, by which bitterness, wrath, and anger, vent themselves. Christians should not entertain these vile passions in their hearts not be clamorous with their tongues. Evil speaking signifies all railing, reviling, and reproachful speeches, against such as we are angry with. ”