CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 3:5. With anger, being grieved.—His anger would be roused as He thought of the evil resulting to others from the bigotry and tyranny of their spirit; His pity, as He thought of the moral loss suffered by themselves in consequence thereof. Hardness.—Dulness. “Not the obduracy which cannot be impressed, but the obtuseness which cannot perceive.” They were blind to their own blindness, deaf to their own deafness; and also blind and deaf to the needs and woes of others. Compassion and kindness of heart were as much dried up in them as this man’s hand was in him.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 3:1-6
(PARALLELS: Matthew 12:9-14; Luke 6:6-11.)
A withered hand restored.—Again it is Sabbath—the day on which the Divine Son of Man specially delighted to bring joy to the souls and healing to the bodies of His suffering brethren. Again, too, the sleuth-hounds are on His track, thirsting for His blood; and this time the trap is so skilfully baited that they feel sure of securing their prey. Had the ingenuity of these religionists only been directed aright—had they thought half as much of the salvation of sinners as they did of the safeguarding of their wire-drawn casuistries—what a mighty work for God could have been accomplished! But, alas! religion meant to them nothing but a round of outward observances; they were “blind as owls to the light of God and true goodness, keen-sighted as hawks for trivial breaches of their cobweb regulations, and cruel as vultures to tear with beak and claw.” Here they stand now in the synagogue, gloating over the spectacle of affliction that meets their eye, for they are convinced that Jesus will set at nought any number of Sabbath traditions, rather than fail to relieve misery.
I. A pitiable object.—The man’s right hand was not only paralysed in the sinews, but withered up and hopeless. An old tradition recorded in the Gospel of the Nazarenes and Ebionites adds, that he was a stonemason by trade, and that he besought Jesus to heal him and relieve him from having to beg for his bread. Let us hope, for the credit of human nature, that those are mistaken who believe the Pharisees themselves had bribed the man to come there and place himself in the Saviour’s way.
II. A fearless challenge.—Jesus, fully aware of their hostile thoughts, as if to anticipate any action on their part, and make the matter as public as possible, bids the man—“Stand forth.” All is now excitement and expectation The looks of the audience pass rapidly from Jesus to the man, and from the man to the Pharisees, in the consciousness that a crisis is near. Then Jesus propounds a question, which in the nature of things admits of but one answer—a question which completely cuts the ground from under His enemies’ feet: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” According to them, only actual danger to life warranted a breach of the Sabbath law. Jesus meets them, therefore, on their own terms, and shows how their own principles lead logically to the kind of Sabbath work that they condemn: “All good-doing to men’s bodies lies on the line of life; all withholding of good-doing lies on the line of killing, or of death. If it would be wrong, in the absence of higher claims, to withhold the good-doing that would save life, it must also be wrong, when the higher claims are still absent, to withhold the good-doing that may be needed to develop life into its fulness of vigour and beauty.” Such reasoning was unanswerable, and could only be met by silence on the part of those who were not prepared to endorse and commend it. If there was still a soft spot in the heart of any one of them, surely Christ’s words must have suggested the contrast between their murderous designs on Him, and His zeal for the life and health of all men. But no such thought seems to have entered their minds. They are speechless—not with conviction, but with conscious defeat.
III. A Divine look.—St. Mark, who, more than any other Evangelist, records the lights and shadows that swept over the Saviour’s countenance, tells us that “He looked round about upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts.” They had set themselves to prove Him guilty at all hazards, and the result was a gradual hardening of the heart, rendering them impervious to all spiritual impressions and impulses. The anger of Christ is directed against their sinful opposition to the truth, which was quite inexcusable; but His loving heart is full of commiseration for the men themselves, whose state of insensibility to goodness and compassion was truly perilous and pitiable.
IV. A life-giving command.—“Stretch forth thine hand.” There is no manipulation of the stricken member, no touch, no word of healing even; nothing but a simple direction to the man to do what was forbidden to none, but what had been up to that moment impossible to him; and in doing as he was bid, in making the effort to obey, the vitality returned, “and his hand was restored whole as the other.” Thus calmly and quietly does Jesus show His enemies how easy it is for Him to evade their best-laid plots; thus incontrovertibly does He prove His superiority to all the powers of evil. Observe, too, “that no offence to hypocrites, no danger to Himself, prevented Jesus from removing human suffering. Also that He expects from the man a certain co-operation involving faith; he must stand forth in the midst; every one must see his unhappiness; he is to assume a position which will become ridiculous unless a miracle is wrought. Then he must make an effort. In the act of stretching forth his hand, the strength to stretch it forth is given; but he would not have tried the experiment unless he trusted before he discovered the power. Such is the faith demanded of our sin-stricken and helpless souls—a faith which confesses its wretchedness, believes in the goodwill of God and the promises of Christ, and receives the experience of blessing through having acted on the belief that already the blessing is a fact in the Divine volition.”
V. An unnatural alliance.—The Pharisees—their pride humbled, their hopes disappointed, their hearts full of futile rage—first commune one with another as to what course they should now pursue, and then, calling together the Herodians, “took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him.” Misfortune, according to an old saw, often brings men into strange company, and certainly it was so in this case. “In theology the Herodians, so far as they held any theological opinions, fraternised with the Sadducees, the latitudinarians of that day; in politics they were adherents of Herod Antipas, and so advocates of the Roman domination. To both these the Pharisees were diametrically opposed. Yet now they enter into an unholy alliance with those who were at once their political opponents and religious antagonists.” Lifelong hatreds are put aside for the nonce, in order that they may make common cause “against the Lord, and against His Anointed.”
Lessons.—
1. As Christ’s actions and words were watched, so are ours.
2. As this man found Christ in the sanctuary, so may we.
3. As this man took Christ at His word, and did exactly what He bade him, so let us.
4. Let us learn further—
(1) For our warning—that not to do good is to do evil; and
(2) For our encouragement—that whatever good we attempt to do, Christ’s power will work with us and in us.
Mark 3:5. Hardness of heart.—It is a true rule and maxim in divinity that sins against the gospel are most heinous and of greatest provocation. As the sweetest and strongest wine makes the sourest and sharpest vinegar, so the choicest favours, if they be despised, provoke in God the greatest displeasure. Now the main sin against the gospel and grace of God is obstinate impenitency and unbelief—when we repel and put off from us the offers of God’s grace. And the root of that is the spirit of obduration and hardness of heart, when our hearts stand it out with God, and will not give way to the work of His grace. And this evil, more or less, in some degree or other, is in all men naturally; and this is that which our Saviour here discovers and reproves in His present auditors.
I. The parties affected with this great evil.—
1. Look upon them as men in the state of nature, and then the observation is thus much—that naturally every man’s heart is full of hardness and obstinacy. God created us in a far different condition: our spirits were tender; our hearts, hearts of flesh; the whole frame and disposition of our souls pliant and yielding to every good motion. But now, as sin hath depraved and corrupted us, our hearts are not stirred or affected with any of these. Doth God appear to us, we take no notice of Him: doth He send His Word to us, we give no credit to it, it seems a fable to us: doth He command us, we will not obey Him: doth He promise us, we will not be persuaded: doth He threaten us, we slight and. contemn it. A hard heart is like a brazen wall—shoot never so many arrows against it, it beats them all back again, they cannot enter: such is a hard heart; neither God’s Word nor His works, neither judgments nor mercies, can enter into it to make any impression. See how the Scripture describes and sets forth this hardness of heart (Ezekiel 11:19; Zechariah 7:12; Jeremiah 6:28; Isaiah 48:4). As they say of the disease of the stone, ’tis oftentimes hereditary; some children have drawn it from their parents, and been born with it: so this stone in the heart, ’tis an original evil; we are born in hardness of heart; ’tis our natural temper. Indeed, for natural and human affections we have flesh and tenderness. Self-love, ’tis quick of feeling, and so parents have their bowels to the fruit of their body; and, in point of humanity to others in misery, all are not hard-hearted; some are tender and pitiful: but in matters of God and spiritual duties, for the entertainments of grace, and the work of conversion, no stone, no adamant, exceeds us in hardness.
2. Look upon them as men living under the law. These men, whom the text speaks of, were not wild men and savages, but civil and orderly: yea, more than so, for their outward state, members of the visible Church, acquainted with the doctrine and discipline of Moses, they had the circumcision of the flesh, instructed in the law; and yet how doth Christ find them? Nothing changed or altered, not mollified or made tender; but dull, dead-hearted sinners for all that. See the state of the Jews (Jeremiah 9:26). Observe, ’tis not in the power of the law to alter or change us, to soften and mollify our hard hearts; that work belongs to Christ and His gospel, to His grace and Spirit. We see this work restrained to the new covenant; ’tis proper to the gospel (Jeremiah 31:31). The law teaches us, but the gospel enables us; that gives and works in us what the law requires of us (John 1:17). The law hath power of conviction, but ’tis the gospel only hath a power of conversion. The law, that’s the hammer that knocks at the door of our hearts; but the gospel, that’s the key that opens it, puts back the bar of obduration, and lets in grace and the Spirit into it.
3. These men were very forward in outward devotion, frequenters of the synagogues, great Sabbatarians, and yet under all this seeming sanctity Christ espies a dead, hard, wicked heart lurking. Observe, seeming and outside sanctity may go together, and consist with inward and spiritual hardness and obstinacy. ’Tis the true constitution of a hypocrite; he is all for the outside of religion—there he is excellent; he will outgo and exceed all others in show: but look upon his heart; he wholly neglects it; that’s full of hardness and stubborn impiety.
(1) ’Tis the easiest work. Outward observances in matter of religion, they cost but little pains; but to work upon the heart, and to bring that in order, that’s painful and laborious. As in the practice of physic or chirurgery, ’tis more easy to cure an outward hurt of the body, that is ill-affected or wounded; but an inward distemper, when a vein is broken, and it bleeds inward, the curing of this is a great deal more difficult.
(2) ’Tis natural for hypocrisy to leave the heart in hardness, because it employs all its care in dressing and trimming and adorning the outside. As those distempers that send all the heat of the body outward, and cause great flushings in the face, they hinder the inward concoction, cool, and dead the stomach and vital parts, that they cannot perform their functions: so hypocrisy sends out all the heat of their piety to the outside, causes great flushings of piety in the outward man, but chills and cools and deadens the life of religion in the heart.
II. Their sinful disposition.—Hardness of heart.
1. The subject of this evil quality is the heart. By heart we are not to understand that particular vital member of the body as in common speech we use to take it, but in the Scripture language: so it signifies the soul and spirit of a man. Thus Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 19:9; Matthew 15:19. The whole soul, and all the faculties of it, are perverted and hardened, dead and dull to any goodness, froward and obstinate to any good motion or holy action. As in a distempered clock, wherein both the spring and the wheels are out of frame, it cannot strike one stroke right.
(1) The mind and understanding, that’s over-grown with hardness and blindness. Eagle-eyed in worldly things, mole-eyed in spiritual.
(2) Our memory in matters of religion, how is that dulled and benumbed! how fluid! No retentive power in it for that which is spiritual. Let the seed of the Word be. sown in it; yet the devil comes and takes it out, that it can have no abiding in us.
(3) The will, of all others, how is that hardened, brawned, steeled! We may as easily remove mountains, pierce the rocks, melt the flint, as persuade and prevail with a hard, obdurate will.
(4) Our affections, which are quick and stirring in other matters, how dead and dull are they to spiritual duties!
2. The quality itself is called “hardness.” Now there is a threefold hardness of heart.
(1) There is, natural and inbred in us, a hardness of heart which we all bring with us into this world, which makes us so unteachable and untractable to any good.
(2) There is an acquired and a contracted hardness of heart, which increases that inbred and natural hardness—when custom in sinning begets in us a firm resolution to continue and persist and go on in sinning (Romans 2:5; Hebrews 3:13).
(3) There is a hardness inflicted by God, a penal and punishing hardness—when God punishes a wicked man with this spiritual judgment of a hard heart. The inquiry then would be, Wherein doth this hardness of heart consist? how shall we discern it? what are the properties and effects of it? Take these four following: (i) Durum non cedit. Those things that are hard, they are unyielding and impenetrable; whereas that which is soft will easily admit of any impression. But a stone, touch it, nay offer more force to it, and strike it, there is yet no yielding in it. And such is the condition of a hard heart, stubborn and impenetrable. Till this hardness be removed by the mighty hand of God, there is no working upon it; it will not give place to any means of grace that God hath appointed, though never so powerful. (ii) A second property and effect of a hard heart is, Durum non sentit; that which is hard and brawny is void of sense and apprehension. The tenderest flesh, ’tis of quickest apprehension; but a brawny heart is dull and insensible. Will you see the stupor and lethargy of a hard heart? Such a heart, no suggestions of Satan, though never so dreadful, affrights them—they startle not at them; no inspirations of God’s Spirit doth at all affect them—they perceive them not; the checks of conscience never move them; the guilt of sin doth not dare them or perplex them. They are like Solomon’s drunkard (Proverbs 23:24). (iii) Another property of a hard heart is, Durum non flectitur; that which is hard is inflexible. A stone may sooner be broken than bent: and such is the temper of a hard heart, no art or endeavour can bow or bend it. (iv) Durum repercutit. There is not only a not yielding in that which is hard, but there is a resistance, a contrary action repelling and driving back any action upon it. Smite a stone, and it will not only not yield, but it enforces the stroke back again. There is a redaction and repercussion in resistance; it will drive back the strength upon him that smote it. And this is the disposition of a hard heart; it will resist and oppose itself against any action of God, and strive against it. And this resistance will show itself in three particulars. (a) In stiffness, and pertinacy, and wilfulness of opinion. (b) In obstinate continuance in wicked courses. (c) In quarrelling and cavilling at any evidence of truth, if it makes against us; it will not suffer us to yield to the obedience of faith, or captivate ourselves to Divine truth, but will exalt itself against the knowledge of God.
Conclusion.—
1. Is every man’s heart by nature thus hard? It gives us the reason why so few men are effectually wrought upon by the means of grace, why so few are converted. ’Tis more wonder to see any to yield and turn to God. ’Tis easier to get oil out of a flint than a good thought out of a stony heart.
2. Is the heart of man so overgrown with hardness? It shows the reason why the work of conversion, even where ’tis begun, goes so slowly forward, why such small progress is made in the work of grace. Engravers upon stone cannot rid much work: they that point and polish diamonds use much grinding to wear away a little unevenness. The heart of man, ’tis like metal, not melted but with much fire and heat; and take it off the fire, it will soon harden of itself. Grace in the heart, ’tis not like heat in the fire, but like heat in the water: as long as there is fire under it, so long it retains heat; but take it off the fire, it will soon grow cold again.
3. Is every man’s heart overgrown with this callous obduration?
(1) Take heed of increasing it. (i) Be careful to avoid and abstain even from small sins; they may make up this evil of obduration. (ii) Especially be careful not to fall into more gross and notorious sins; they have a special force to harden the heart. Such sins waste the conscience, make havoc of grace, sear the conscience with a hot iron. (iii) Wouldst thou not increase this hardness of heart? Above all take heed of sinning against the light and evidence and dictates of conscience.
(2) Use all good means to remove it, and to get tender and feeling and softened hearts. (i) Complain to God, as to the Great Physician of thy soul, who alone is able to cure this malady. (ii) Then lay thine heart under the dint and stroke of the Word. That Word, enlivened by His Spirit, is a mighty instrument to bruise and soften and mollify the heart (Jeremiah 23:29). (iii) The daily practice of repentance is of great force to soften our hearts. A mournful heart will prove a mollified heart. There be two names given to repentance, which show the virtue of it to work upon the heart. (a) Compunction, that enters indeed, and goes to the quick. (b) Contrition, that bruises and breaks the hardness of heart, and makes capable of any good impression. A daily dropping upon a hard stone will pierce into it and wear it away: and so the daily distillations of penitential tears are of great force to wear away this spiritual hardness of an obdurate heart.—Bishop Brownrigg.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 3:1-3. The hand was made for work, but there are many withered hands in society. A celebrated German economist divides industrial history into three periods. In the first, nature was chiefly productive; in the second, human toil; in the third, capital. Inventions have changed the hand’s labour; there has been a withering of the hand before the onward march of inventive genius. The hand is still required to guide the machine, but there are many who consider toil a disgrace. Fathers once humble in life, but now rich, make the mistake of not training their children in the same industrial habits of life, and in a spirit of self-reliance. Children of the rich scorn toil by reason of their inheritance; while the poor, through envy of the rich, lose consciousness of the inherent dignity of labour. Unto all such Christ says, “Stretch forth thy hand”. “Six days shalt thou labour,” etc.—A. C. Ludlow.
Lessons.—
1. Christ’s detection of human incompleteness. He instantly discovered that there was a man in the synagogue with a withered hand. The musician instantly detects a false note; the painter instantly detects an inartistic line; the complete Christ instantly detects the incomplete man.
2. Jesus Christ’s power over partial disease. The man had only a withered hand. In some cases Christ had to heal thoroughly diseased men; in this case the disease was local; yet in both instances His power was the same.—J. Parker, D. D.
Mark 3:1. Power of usefulness destroyed.—This man’s disease was not like the palsy, a type of universal inaction; nor like some consuming fever, a type of the way in which sin and vice pervert all the faculties of the soul; but there was a vivid picture of that infirmity which destroys a man’s power of doing anything well. The hand of man is one of those noble physical features which distinguish him from the brute. “The hand” is but another name for human skill, power, and usefulness, and for the studied adaptation of means to ends.
1. The bigotry of these Pharisees rendered them useless in the great kingdom of God, and destroyed their power of serving Christ.
2. Prejudices wither up some of the energies of men.
3. Past inconsistencies often wither up the power of service.
4. Easily besetting sins will paralyse the usefulness of any man who does not earnestly wage war against them.—H. R. Reynolds.
Withered hearts and hands.—If there were no withered hearts, there would be no withered hands; make the fountain clear, and the stream will be pure. A miser, an unfruitful Christian, a negligent ruler, a strong man who will not help in any good work—these are all mere withered hands.
Mark 3:2. Hollow profession.—Where religion has become a body of maxims and doctrines, without life or warmth or motion—where it is traditional observance handed down from father to son, “devotion’s every grace, except the heart”—where it is all intellect and no affection, all logic without love—its professors are always strict to “mark iniquities,” and mere trivial breaches of religious etiquette may reap worse punishment than gross sins.—G. Walker.
Mark 3:5. Lessons.—
1. It is the duty of a Christian to sorrow not only for his own sins, but also to be grieved for the sins of others.
2. All anger is not to be considered sinful.
3. He does not bear the image of Christ, but rather that of Satan, who can either behold with indifference the wickedness of others, or rejoice in it.
4. Nothing is more wretched than an obdurate heart, since it caused Him who is the source of all true joy to be filled with grief in beholding it.
5. Our indignation against wickedness must be tempered by compassion for the persons of the wicked.—T. H. Horne.
Christ’s look.—In that look there were two things—there were anger and grief, indignation and inward sorrow. His was not anger which desired evil to its object; no touch of malevolence was in it: it was simply love on fire, love burning with indignation against that which is unlovely. Mingled with this anger there was grief. He was heart-broken because their hearts were so hard. As Manton puts it, “He was softened because of their hardness.” His was not the pitiless flame of wrath which burns in a dry eye; He had tears as well as anger. His thunder-storm brought a shower of pity with it.
The only legitimate anger is a holy emotion directed against an unholy thing. Sin, not our neighbour, must be its object; zeal for righteousness, not our pride, must be its distinguishing character.—Dr. Arnot.
Christ’s feelings.—Everything that He touched burned that pure nature, which was sensitive to evil like an infant’s hand to hot iron. His sorrow and His anger were the two sides of the medal. His feelings on looking on sin were like a piece of woven stuff with a pattern on either side: on one the fiery threads—the wrath; on the other the silvery tints of sympathetic pity. A warp of wrath, a woof of sorrow, and a dew of flame married and knit together.—A. Maclaren, D. D.
What was hardening their hearts?—It was He! Why were their hearts being hardened? Because they were looking at Him, His graciousness, His goodness, and His power, and were steeling themselves against Him, opposing to His grace and tenderness their obstinate determination. Some little gleams of light were coming into their houses, and they clapped the shutters up. Some tones of His voice were coming into their ears, and they stuffed their fingers into them. They half felt that if they let themselves be influenced by Him it was all over, and so they set their teeth and steadied themselves in their antagonism.—Ibid.
Health by obedience.—The way of health lay in obedience. Had the man said, “No, I cannot”—had he debated, argued, “My arm is withered”—surely the power of Christ had been restrained and the man had gone to his grave a cripple. Christ speaks to us. He tells us to do what seems impossible—to repent, believe, love, pray, trust. If we will be saved, if we will have soul-health, it must come to us in the way of obedience.—G. Walker.
As we work God works.—If we pass the clear light of day through a prism, we get many coloured rays. Our scientific men tell us that these rays have different properties. Some carry more heat than others; some are full of chemical force, and others have special electric properties. Now if a man should say, “I will glaze my conservatory with different coloured glass; one compartment shall be red, another green, another blue, and so on; and I will pass my plants from one compartment to another, and play experiments upon them; and I will take the arrangement of light and shade into my own hands,”—you may imagine the result. He would make good scientific experiments, but he would have poor success as a gardener. He would not get flower or fruit in perfection. The “Light of Men” is full-orbed and many-rayed. To the healthy soul His light appears clear as the daylight. I fear we have sometimes too much spectral analysis in our heavenly things. We seek for sharp lines of demarcation. So one man will like the faith-producing ray, another the work-power, another the hope-power, another the will-producing influence. We seem to think, if we could but tinker up and amend the weak parts of our nature we might be saved. These works of mercy, these acted parables, all bring home to the heart one great truth, clear and pure as daylight. They present differences, but, amid all the difference, the one truth. They are full of the entire appeal of Jesus Christ to men. No matter what be our complaint, or special weakness, or sin; if all be diseased, be it ours to take Him in full reliance on His power and willingness to heal.—Ibid.
Instant action.—All that saved this man was that he did not stop to think. He proceeded as though there were no difficulties, and forthwith for him there were none. All Christ’s commands to unconverted men are in the present tense, which means that the command is issued without any allowance of time for comprehending the mysteries of salvation or for acquiring power to become a saved man. It is simply levelled to the range of the instant; not because thought is not advantageous in some circumstances, but because it is not in point here. Giving ourselves to Christ is not a matter of understanding what we are doing, but a matter of doing something, as when you tell your boy to raise his hand; he does not know how he raises his hand, and you know no more about it than he as regards the physiological intricacies of the act. And if he were to decline raising it until he understood the matter, you would tell him to do it first and understand at his leisure; your command was aimed at his will, and his resort to the intricacies of physiology only a side issue raised to divert your attention from his insubordination. God’s commands stand out of all relation to human power to grasp the problems, moral or theological, associated with obedience to those commands. God’s commands are like the pole-star, which with swift intuition finds out the magnetic needle as easily by night-light as by daylight, and beats upon it with relentless compulsion equally in the darkness and the sunshine. They are not a question of can, but of will; and with the will once trembling obediently on the verge of action, all needed resource of power is at its instant service.—C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.
Mark 3:6. The working of three determined and most mischievous powers.—
1. The power of prejudice.
2. The power of technicality.
3. The power of ignorance. Prejudice as against Christ: technicality as opposed to humanity: ignorance as forgetful of the fact that in morals as well as in physics the greater includes the less. Sabbath-keeping is less than man-healing.—J. Parker, D. D.
The madness of enmity.—
1. It thinks that it can destroy Jesus.
2. It does not see how deeply it condemns itself.—J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Mark 3:2. The world watches Christians.—“Now lads,” said the late Duncan Matheson, the Scottish evangelist, to a lot of boys who had been converted at his meetings, “the people here are not in the habit of reading their Bible to learn what God says to them, but I’ll tell you what they’ll read. They’ll read your lives and ways very carefully to see if you are really what you profess to be. And mind you this, if they find your lives to be inconsistent with your profession, the devil will give them this for an excuse in rejecting Christ.” Very true indeed are these words. Would that we could lay them more constantly to heart! The life of the professing Christian is the only book of evidences that many people ever read in reference to Christianity. The Christian professor’s life is thus the world’s Bible. When there are inconsistencies and flaws in it, then the world makes these a plea against religion. Let us remember that the world’s eyes are upon us. Let us keep our book of evidences clear and pure.
Mark 3:5. Anger checks wrongdoing.—It might at first appear well for mankind if the bee were without its sting; but upon recollection it will be found that the little animal would then have too many rivals in sharing its labours. A hundred other lazy animals, fond of honey and hating labour, would intrude upon the sweets of the hive, and the treasure would be carried off for want of armed guardians to protect it. And it might at first appear well for mankind if the principle of anger were not a part of our constitution. But then we should be overrun with rogues. The presence of anger, always ready to start forth when an injury is done or intended, has the effect of suppressing much gross impudence and intolerable oppression. The sting of noble anger applied to a dastard who has bullied the weak or injured the unoffending has a most salutary influence in restraining him for the future, and in warning his fraternity of the like punishment which is all ready for them. But man should control his anger as the bee does her sting. It is not to be perpetually projected on every possible occasion, but to be used only when impertinence, laziness, injustice, or fraud requires.—Scientific Illustrations.