Indignity

“ It is no rare thing for him whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence; whose anger flames in behalf of the injured and ruined victims of wrong; to be in some relation unjust, or oppressive, or envious, or self-indulgent, or a careless talker of others. How wonderfully indignant the penurious man often is, at the avarice or want of public spirit of another! ”

“ We may be indignant towards ourselves; we are indignant towards every thing that wounds the sentiment of justice. Indignation covers a judgment, the judgment that he who commits such or such an action, whether against us, or even for us, does{222} an action unworthy, contrary to our dignity, to his own dignity, to human dignity. The injury sustained is not the measure of indignation, as the advantage received is not that of admiration. ”

“ All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word—Hell.
For the nourishment of this dogma cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light.
Christians have placed upon the throne of the universe a God of eternal hate. I cannot worship a being whose vengeance is boundless, whose cruelty is shoreless, and whose malice is increased by the agonies he inflicts. ”

“ He asks, with indignant scorn, what need there is of accumulated torment, to prove to one who has recovered his sight, that he was once blind; and in this scorn and indignation he denounces the gods, whose futile vindictiveness would shame the very nature of man; he denounces them as hollow imitations of him whom they are supposed to create: as mere phantoms to which he imparts the light and warmth of his own life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Alas! we so dearly love to be lamented in our misfortunes: indifference alone irritates and wounds us: here not only shall all hearts be shut to our misfortunes, but all beholders shall insult our shame, and the only portion left to the sinner shall be his confusion, his despair, and his crimes. ”

“ Restrain yourself, therefore, from all iniquity, and do that which is good." "What, sir," say I, "are the evil deeds from which we must restrain ourselves?" "Hear," says he: "from adultery and fornication, from unlawful revelling, from wicked luxury, from indulgence in many kinds of food and the extravagance of riches, and from boastfulness, and haughtiness, and insolence, and lies, and backbiting, and hypocrisy, from the remembrance of wrong, and from all slander. These are the deeds that are most wicked in the life of men. ”

“ Deep, chronic pains of the soul, especially if accompanied by a strong exertion of thought—among which I would give a prominent place to that lingering anger which men call indignation—gnaw the very foundations of physical life, and dry up the sap that nourish it. ”

“ Precisely in those apostles of revenge and resentment, in those who are par excellence pessimists from indignation, who make it their mission to sanctify their filth with the name of "righteous indignation."... We others, whose one desire is to reclaim innocence on behalf of Becoming, would fain be the missionaries of a purer thought, namely, that no one is responsible for man's qualities ”

“ Further, Though injury, injustice, oppression, the baseness of ingratitude, are the natural objects of indignation, or, if you please, of resentment, as before explained, yet they are likewise the objects of compassion, as they are their own punishment, and without repentance will for ever be so. No one ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a much greater to himself. ”

“ The malevolent affections are Anger, Resentment, Envy, Revenge, and Hatred.
Anger is the sense of indignation occasioned by real or imagined wrong. When excited by actual wrong-doing, and when contained within reasonable bounds, it is not only innocent, but salutary. It intensifies the virtuous feeling which gives it birth; and its due expression is among the safeguards of society against corruption and evil. ”

“ This impassioned strain is continued till his anger is turned against the author of her sufferings, when it is poured out in one of the most terrific passages which poetry, either ancient or modern, can exhibit,—a passage in which indignation and revenge seem to absorb every other feeling, and to involve not only the offender, but all who are connected with him, in indiscriminate destruction. ”

“ No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the heart to cling to,—no thought of remorseful penitence,—no spark of noble feeling; nothing but vice,—low, grovelling, brutal vice,—from the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the real impurity left on the other! ”

“ But indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our thoughts to be occupied with an evil world; and in the fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs there is a kind of self-assertion which it is necessary for the wise to overcome. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A RULE OF LIFE
‘If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,’ said a crafty old knave to me, ‘you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
‘To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
‘In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whence it comes to pass, that in their results we have sometimes found the same spirit of cruelty and revenge, of malice and pride, the same blindness and obstinacy and unsteadiness, the same ungovernable rage and anger, the same injustice, sophistry, and fraud, that ever lodged in the breast of any individual. ”

“ I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me; show me why thou contendest with me.
3 Is it good to thee that thou shouldst oppress, that thou shouldst despise the work of thy hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
4 Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?
5 Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man's days,
6 That thou inquirest after my iniquity, and searchest after my sin?
7 Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thy hand. ”

“ O infinite God, whose wrath is terrible, but yet just, against those who are angry without measure, clear the eyes of my soul, that, considering the terrible chastisements that proceed from Thy sacred indignation, I may restrain those evil and vehement passions that proceed from mine! Amen.
POINT II.
1. Secondly, I will consider the evils and chastisements of this vice, as well those it brings with it as those which God of His justice adds in this life and in the life to come.
i. Anger destroys our likeness to Almighty God, [115] whose works are full of great tranquillity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, weaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. ”

“ Hence, all influence, power, honor, and wealth, are in their hands, or where they dispose of them; to us they have left only insults, dangers, prosecutions, and poverty. To such indignities, O bravest of men, how long will you submit? Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy? ”

“ When the action is considered as unjust, it occasions another set of feelings. In the author it produces remorse, and a dread of merited punishment; and in others, the benefactor chiefly, indignation and hatred directed upon the ungrateful person. Thus shame and remorse united in the ungrateful{26} person, and indignation united with hatred in the hearts of others, are the punishments provided by nature for injustice. ”

“ Or were such an attempt to be now made, it is highly probable, that it would be resented with indignation by the good sense of mankind as an insult and outrage upon the understanding and best feelings of the human heart. ”

“ When, therefore, such wretched worms of the earth as we are presume to offend and insult this God of infinite dignity, by transgressing His commands, and preferring ourselves or any creature to Him, the malice of such conduct is in a manner infinite, for we find among ourselves that the grievousness of any injury always increases in proportion to the dignity of the person offended above the one who injures him. ”

“ Are we men in whose bosoms burns the desire to sweep off the face of the earth all unruth and injustice and wrong? or are we, as some men say of us, but varlets whose envy and greed make us lust for the ease of the gentles? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet the poor sinners had managed to get them across their shoulders, and so had dragged them hither, with many pains of outward penance and fearful flagellations of conscience, but with rich reward of pride before earthly eyes, and promises of glory in the world to come. ”

“ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but thy word shall never fail. Encouraged by this word, I come: not even the reflection of my absolute unworthiness shall keep me from thee. ’Tis to sinners that this heavenly call is addressed; sinners that labour under the heavy burden of their offence; and such am I. The miserable wretch who is chained to the oar, is not more weary of his slavery, than I am of my sins: the sins which so easily beset me, and so often conquer my best resolutions. ”

“ On hearing these noble sentiments fall from the lips of a person, once a slave, and in a manner most insinuating, with all the dignity of the most refined and cultivated person, and with an indignation expressive of the deepest abhorrence for the nefarious system of unmittigated, inhuman, chattelism. ”

“ Envy, anger and avarice reign among some; modesty is banished among others; these abandon themselves to intemperance and sloth, and the pride of these rises to insolence. It is all over; I will dwell no longer among the seven deadly sins."
LE SAGE (Gil-Blas) .
I must take my courage with both hands to continue to unfold before you the events however simple of this simple tale. Already I hear the eternal flock of hypocrites and fools protesting and crying out at outraged morality. I know them, these indignant voices of the defenders of morality. ”

“ Any man may be angry with such a masterful chum. But, then, what kind of men were we—with our thoughts! Indignation and doubt grappled within us in a scuffle that trampled upon the finest of our feelings. ”

“ Bowed down by shame and remorse, the unhappy man slunk back to his hermitage, miserable and degraded, bitterly lamenting his folly and infatuation, but resolved to atone for it by deep repentance and severe penance. ”

“ I have known a casual word spoken by a vicious servant, plant the seeds of vice in a young and previously-innocent mind, which have afterwards produced a harvest of misery, desolation, and remorse, in the bosom of a happy and virtuous family. ”

“ They stalk about in our midst as living reproaches, as warnings to us—as though health, fitness, strength, pride, the sensation of power, were really vicious things in themselves, for which one would have some day to do penance, bitter penance. ”

“ What I do is 'prudence,' what you do of the same sort is 'covetousness'; what I do is 'sowing my wild oats,' what you do is 'immorality' and 'dissipation'; what I do is 'generous living,' what you do is 'drunkenness' and 'gluttony'; what I do is 'righteous indignation,' what you do is 'passionate anger.' And so you may go the whole round of evil. Very bad are the men who can look at their deed, described in Its own inherent deformity, and yet say, 'Yes ”

“ Shall I dare, in the presence of Thy glance so infinitely pure, commit deeds which I dare not even show to man? Shall I dare to sin in Thy presence, knowing that sin and the sinner is hated by Thee, and to condemn the sinner Thou hast no wish? ”