Only a Little | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 7, 1871

Only a Little.

Ah, my friend, I don't like to hear you say, “It's only a little I can do.” It sounds as if, because you can't do some great things which you would like to do, you are discouraged from doing anything. Somebody hears you say it and goes away murmuring, “It is less that I can do; there is no use of my trying,” when, if you both had done the little which lay before you, the two little rills would have made a part of a broad stream of good that might have been done. It is “only a little,” but you can smile if you only meet a stranger in the street. Who knows what a cloud of darkness, of despondency, one smile may dispel. What if it is nothing but a kind word to a school-boy crying in the street? It dries his tears, the aching heart grows light and glad again. For the word of cheer, that boy is your friend now. Never mind if his jacket is torn, a true heart beats under it. The little things which you may do for those about you will fall back upon your own heart as the summer dews fall upon the vineyards. Night after night through all the long summer they fall, and the morning sunshine drives them through the green covering into the young fruit, till, from a strange mixture of sunshine and dew, we have those purple clusters of rich, luscious juices. So, into your own heart will all your little good deeds and good words fall at last, and you will feel the growth of them within you—you will look farther beyond, to the nobleness of life, you will feel that it is a blessed privilege to live, not merely to exist, but to act out the noble manhood which God has given you. The cares and troubles of life will sink to nothing when we compare them with the life we are to live, that life the image of God wherein we are created.

It may be “only a little” we can do, but if we do every little every time that we can, we shall feel our souls reaching outward and upward, grasping toward the infinite, the eternal, and our grasp will not be in vain, for the peace that passeth understanding will come to our hearts, and in such cycle of our being we shall put on a new soul-growth, and find ourselves reaching nearer to the beautiful gardens of the heavenly land. In a little while we shall reach its balmy shores, we shall clasp the hands that are waiting for us, and we shall hear it said, “You have done what you could.”—Sel.