XXXV

LITTLE THINGS1

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. (Luke 16: 10.)

LITTLE things their influence in matters of religion, this is the theme suggested by the text. I suppose we should all agree that little things are the best signs of character. Straws thrown into the air show which way the wind blows much better than the throwing up of bullets or cannon-balls. In great things we have more thought of others, we are moved more by surrounding influences. In little things there is not the same possibility of concealment; we must sometimes forget, and then we act ourselves. You cannot form half so safe a judgment of a young man's goodness of heart from his politeness in company as you can from his everyday treatment of his mother at home. Women's opinions of women are generally more correct than men's, because they see their sisters when less under the influence of conventional proprieties, and so are better able to mark those little things of conduct which most fully manifest the inner disposition. It is not so much by a man's words in the prayer meeting as by the tenor of his common

1 A sermon preached in the First Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N. Y., May 26, 1889.

talk that the world judges him. God recognizes and follows the same rule, when he declares that "every idle word shall be brought into the judgment." It shall be brought into the judgment because it will afford the best index of the heart.

It is a generally acknowledged fact that as a man does in little things, so he will do in great. This is an unconscious inference from the other fact just mentioned, that in little things the prevailing disposition is most apt to manifest itself. In general and in the long run men follow their prevailing dispositions. If you were going to select a missionary for some hard foreign field you would not take the youth of romantic dreams, whose mind had reveled in visions of some vast work of Christian conquest. You would greatly prefer some one who had proved the reality of his faith and zeal, by calm and straightforward work for Christ and the church in the humble sphere God had already assigned him.

Every merchant chooses his confidential clerk or his junior partner on some such principle. He never takes an unreliable, unpunctual, inattentive employee as his chief assistant, with the idea that the new position may change these habits of his. He rightly argues that faithfulness in a subordinate place is the only surety for faithfulness in a higher one. The character that has shown its weakness and inefficiency in the humbler sphere will not change in a day, merely because its surroundings have changed. The bookkeeper whose cash account lacks twenty-five cents of balancing shows himself a very incompetent and untrustworthy bookkeeper when he charges the twenty-five

cents to sundries, instead of hunting up his error. It is utterly hopeless to think of making that boy a scholar who is perfectly content to put up with a trifling inaccuracy, when, with a little labor, he could set himself right. True honesty is not consistent with even slight evasions of truth. True holiness abhors even the appearance of sin. "True faithfulness," in the words of another, "has its ground not in the greatness of the matter in which it is displayed, but in the conscientious conviction of duty in him who exercises it. He that lacks it in the less will not show it in the greater. He who has it will count nothing unworthy of his attention, whether it be great or small."

So much about little things as signs of character. It is by these, and not by great things, that we mainly judge of others. This fact should of itself convince us that little things are by no means unimportant. But I wish to show you that they are more important still because of their influence in forming character.

Have you ever seen what is called infusorial earth? The city of Richmond, Va., is built upon a deposit of such earth, many feet in thickness. Examine that earth with a magnifying-glass and you find it composed of the silicious shells of myriads of diatoms. The countless host of lower organisms that swarmed in the ancient waters have left their flinty coverings as a stony foundation for the life and history of man. Creatures of infinitesimal size, they were yet, in the aggregate, equal to the work of building up a substratum on which a city could be built. city could be built. One by one they lived and died, all unconscious of the use they were to serve; but men profit in these after ages by

their lives and stand in wonder before the work which they accomplished. Every little act of our lives is like one of those diatoms, it leaves something behind it-sometimes a deposit of good, ofttimes a deposit of evil. And just as a microscopic examination of that infusorial earth shows to-day the precise forms of those beautiful, but tiny, creatures that lived ages ago, so God's eye, if not man's eye, might see every good man's character to be the sum and product of ten thousand times ten thousand definite words and thoughts and deeds, which separately were considered insignificant. Of all true souls it may be said at last: "They builded better than they knew." They had no notion that their every breath was to stamp itself into character; but lo! while they thought themselves building for time, they found themselves building for eternity.

It may be doubted, indeed, whether the great emergencies of life, with their opportunities for grand emotions and grand acts, have anything like the influence upon us that is exercised by the small ones. These great emergencies come but seldom. The lives. of many are marked by none of them. If character is formed at all, it must be by accretions almost insensible. Who would ever think of acquiring good manners by some sudden leap? You cannot change the boor into the gentleman in a moment. The rough and ugly spirit may be changed in a moment by the grace of God, but facility and propriety in the expression of that spirit-that is something gained slowly and only by constant watchfulness and practice. It is not great things, but little things, con

stantly accumulating, that make the polished and cultured man.

How slight the means are by which you preserve life and health from day to day! It is by the daily taking of food and exercise, and generally in small quantities, that vigor and strength are kept. None of us eats a whole ox at once. None of us can take in air enough at one time to last us for a whole week. The law of nature is the frequent taking of air and food, and of no great amount at once. So the religious life is dependent upon daily and hourly reception of the bread of life into our souls. A little Scripture every day, a quarter hour regularly devoted to secret prayer, a word for Christ dropped in the ear of a friend, a little regular work done for God and souls in the Sabbath-school, or in visitation of the poor-these are the things that tell on character, that confirm faith and make it strong, that make religion and life identical. But, on the other hand, little indulgences oft repeated are the things that make religion unreal to us, fill us with doubts as to our acceptance with God, lead us to shirk all earnest work for Christ, sap the very life of our Christianity.

We should not forget, either, that little things often lead to greater. God's providence generally prepares us for great sacrifices and great labors and great triumphs by little sacrifices and little labors and little triumphs. His most successful servants have been commonly educated in the school of humble and unnoticed toil and trial. Only after they have served an apprenticeship of self-discipline and perseverance and faith, does he permit them to see the obstacles