Power of Littles by Southern Workman

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 2, 1882

Power of Littles.

By Southern Workman

A single bitter word may disquiet an entire family for a whole day. One surly glance casts a gloom over the household, while a smile, like a gleam of sunshine, may light up the darkest and weariest hours. Like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path, full of freshness, fragrance and beauty, do kind words, and gentle acts, and sweet dispositions, make glad the home where peace and blessings dwell. No matter how humble the abode, if it be thus garnished with grace and sweetened with kindness and smiles, the heart will turn lovingly towards it from all the tumult of the world; it will be the dearest spot beneath the circuit of the sun. And the influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle grace of the mother lives in the daughter long after her head is pillowed in the dust of death, and the father kindly finds his echo in the nobility and courtesy of his sons, who come to wear his mantle and fill his place; while on the other hand, from an unhappy, misgoverned, and disordered home, go forth persons who shall make homes miserable, and perpetuate the sourness and sadness, the contentions and strifes and railings, which have made their own early lives so wretched and distorted. And what is here said of home life is only less true of school life.

—Southern Workman.