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Show IMPULSIVE PEOPLE. Impulsive people have a certain force and enthusiasm about them, which cooler and more calculating people sometimes lack [unreadable phrase] that they are prone to act and speak hastily, without due consideration, and that they, therefore, must sometimes repent at leisure. Esau [?] who with all his faults, was as more than his craftier brother, was an impulsive man, and yielding to a masterful but foolish impulse, he sold his birthright, and thenceforth found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. How many others are there who have done the same thing - brave, gallant youths, who go from their homes meaning to live as they have been trained by good parents, but who yield to the lures of the tempter, and fall; beautiful girls, who rashly listen to the flattering tongues, or are inflated with vanity, and who marry, against the advice of loving friends, only to enter on lives of misery. There are plenty of men and women in the world today who follow Esau's example, and at the very beginning of the race, sell or lose their birthright. But there are noble as well as sordid influences in the world, and the people who are generously and bravely impulsive are worthy of all honor. It was such a man who, seeing his comrades run, panic-stricken, from the field of battle, seized a standard and exclaimed, as he waved it in his right hand, "Soldiers, you may fly, if you will, but the flag cannot go with you!" He stayed the rout; his men charged gallantly on the opposing lines, and disaster was turned to victory. Such impulses lead brave men to go to the relief of those in peril to spring into the waves after the drowning, and to risk life and limb wherever it may be necessary, that others may be saved. There is one sort of impulsiveness which often gets people into serious trouble. We are fretted and vexed at the note of somebody else, and we do not wait to think, but say out our irritation, and wound deeply some sensitive spirit. We are angry, and we let passion rule us instead of calm reflection. The impulsive person who cannot control his temper is like one who carries fire near gunpowder. -- Christian at Work. |