A portion of a letter by the Welsh pastor, John Elias, to his son John who was away at school. Edward Morgan said of Elias, “How few professors and ministers pay so much attention to the spiritual interest of their children as Elias did!” Elias’s son was sixteen years of age when this letter was written in 1819.
Take great care of thy temper; learn to be master of it now in thy youthful days; yea, if some laugh at thee, or despise thee, or offend thee, receive it mildly, and take care that thou dost not suffer thy self to be under the dominion of an angry, surly, and revengeful temper. It is not manly, much less Christian-like – nay, it is Satan-like. Therefore, my dear son, beware of this temper; it is a disgrace to the human nature; it is a great defect in the moral character of man, to say that he is of a rash, angry, and revengeful temper.
John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays, by Edward Morgan, first published in 1844, reprinted by the Banner of Truth, 1973, p. 204.
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