by L. E. Maxwell, principal, Prairie Bible Institute
I n order to describe the reactions of the people of His day to the claims of the Gospel, Jesus recalled a game at which the children of that day were accustomed to play. The youngsters would first “play wedding.” The murmuring listeners, instead of dancing, would remain seated and react with indifference. Then the players would “wail” as though at a funeral, but the listeners would not mourn. Thus the unsatisfied hearers always complained whether the “play” was of the gladness of the wedding, or the wail of a funeral. The meaning was very obvious to Christ’s audience. John the Baptist had cdme with his call to repentance, and he had in his train some penitent followers. Jesus had come with His blessed promises of grace, and He was attended by a number of happy believers. But just as it was with the listening children, the great masses — “this generation” — reacted wrongly. They rejected both John and Jesus. Neither preacher could please such a crowd. Wisdom is justified only by her children. Jamie son, Fausset, and Brown make some pointed observations in this connection. They say: Most of our alumni are working in close fellowship with others, either on mission stations or in churches or in some other association with fellow laborers. None of us, we trust, live merely to ourselves. We cannot avoid being thrown together, at least in some measure, with others. This brings before us the great problem of how we can live and work together seven days in the week, with people who are of radically differing tastes and tempera ments. Certain psychologists have classified each one of us as predominantly one of four differing temperaments. We cannot place too much stock in these categories, how ever, for we understand that even those who first advo cated them have largely forsaken them. Most men have come to believe that while we may be predominantly of one temperamental turn or another, most of us are a kind of combination of them all. Of course it takes no very wise mind to see that we have differing temperaments and dispositions as well as various kinds of training. Some people are warm-blooded and hotheaded. They live in their feelings. They are quick and impulsive, easily moved — the “Salesman Sam” type. They are hasty and headlong, cutting off ears, building tabernacles, wading waters too deep, and saying, “Not so, Lord.” Others may be considered solid and even-tempered. Calm and cool, they live in their wills. Some may con sider them stubborn and bullheaded. Like Moses, they rise in righteous indignation to kill Egyptians and prove their emancipating powers. Theirs is “the victory of the One preacher is too austere; another is too free. One is too long; another too short. One is too sentimental; another is too hard. Nothing pleases; nobody quite suits them.
violent.” Woe betide any person or providential circum stance that obstructs their onmarch. Their program is divine, fixed, fore-ordained, inflexible. Once they be come aroused, they can trample over the feelings of others, or right on the faces of others, in order to finish the work God has given them to do. Then there are those who are sad and gloomy, per haps even morbid. They are so serious as sons of John the Baptist that they almost think the hilarious are “winebib- bers and gluttons.” Their very faces, forbidding and rug ged, set forth their concept of piety. They lack only the long garments of the nun. The sons of laughter are a far too happy lot for them. What a supply of grace to make these sociable and “given to hospitality”! Finally, there are those who are free and hilarious. Even in their regeneracy “they were bom in the fire and they cannot live in the smoke.” Their danger is not a lack of vivacity. Temperamentally, they overflow with liveliness. Their peril lies in the direction of levity. The austerity of the melancholic they cannot tolerate. Yet how much grace it takes for them to be “sober-minded.” Now we must learn to have patience, one with the other. Not one of us is the exact counterpart of the other. Each one of us must be himself with his tempera mental turn under the control of the Holy Spirit. Then let each one of us respect the individuality of the other. How fortunate that we are not all alike! We. must come to have confidence in one another and to recognize that these temperamental turns and differences are not neces sarily a true index into spirituality. I am reminded, too, of Miss D. R. Miller, of such blessed memory as a teacher here at Prairie Bible Insti tute — how she used to state this matter in her own observant and discriminating manner: “The sight of others’ faults is leading me in these later days, not to be critical of them, but rather to be more charitable toward them. These flaws or faults lead me to love them the more.” Such an attitude of love and longsuffering on our own part comes with maturity of spiritual growth, which is, of course, coupled with our personal recognition of our own many failures. , A missionary Field Director once said from our plat form: “I have learned, after years of working with mis sionaries on the field, how difficult it is for others to get along with me .” And we believe that, in measure, he told the truth. He had, by sad experience, come to know how exasperat ing he could be to his fellows. It is in a sense very self- redemptive when one can so isolate himself from his temperamental tendencies as to be able to appraise his handicaps and evaluate himself in the scale of human detriment or usefulness. Then he can by the Spirit begin to get hold of himself and handle himself in recogni tion of those particular impulses with which he is blessed or plagued.
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