THE GREAT LITTLE THINGS.
By A. J. B.
To, the one who is constantly looking for some “great big” thing, the title of this article may seem a little ambiguous. However, though paradoxical, it expresses perfectly the thought which we wish to convey. The dignity and importance of little things are too often overlooked. All great things are composed of little things. For every “great big” thing in this world there exist a thousand “great little” things. Life itself is made up entirely of very little things—seconds, heart-beats, snatches of fresh air, little food-particles, millions of little thoughts brief as lightning, etc., etc. How much, indeed, depends upon trifles! Jesus was a thorough believer in the importance of little things. He it was who taught that “he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” Luke 16: 10. In His parables He used the little, the every-day things of life to make His thoughts plain to the multitudes. By means of the parable of the mustard seed He taught a never-to-be-forgotten lesson on the power and true greatness of “little things.” After the feeding of the five thousand He asked His disciples to “gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” John 6: 12. Jesus was a true gentleman—a man of gentle manners; for, among David’s last words occur the following: “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” 2 Sam. 22: 36. His gentleness, we may be sure, was manifested not merely in the great things, in the crises through which He passed, but also in His more numerous experiences in little things. Snow and water are composed of minute particles, frail in themselves; yet how disastrous the powerful avalanches and floods! It has been estimated, by some genius, that “if a single grain of wheat produces fifty grains in one year’s growth, and these and succeeding crops be counted, and yield proportionately, the product at the end of the twelfth year would suffice to supply all the inhabitants of the earth for centuries. The single grain would have multiplied itself 244,140,625,000,000,000,000 times.” Some other genius should compute the size of the forest which it is possible to grow from one little acorn, etc., etc. Such is the power of little things. History records that the Crimean War, which involved England, France, Turkey, and Russia, and cost $1,520,000,000, to say nothing of the great loss of life, “grew out of the refusal to give up a key. A shrine in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem was claimed by the Greek Church, which locked it up, and declined to surrender the key. This refusal made the Latin Church angry. The controversy became so warm that Russia stepped in as the patron of the Greek Church, and France of the Latin Church, and the complications increased. Russia demanded of Turkey that some repairs be made to the church. Turkey refused the demand. As England had been in the habit of helping the Turks, she took sides with them, and drifted into an alliance with France, against Russia. From that trifling and contemptible beginning came the charge of the ‘Six Hundred,’ the costly assault of the Malakoff, the destruction of thousands of brave men who died in the trenches before Sebastopol, and the slaughter of many desperate battles.” Nor is this the only case wherein a little thing played so important a part. Then ten years’ siege of Troy was caused by a circumstance most trivial. Numerous other instances might be mentioned. It is said that Napoleon’s success was due to the fact that he was “a master of trifles;” and that “to details which his inferior officers thought too microscopic for their notice, he gave the most exhaustive attention. Nothing was too small for his study. Nothing could be more perfectly planned, even to the pettiest item, than his memorable march which led to the victory of Austerlitz, which for years sealed the fate of Europe.” The captain who took him to Elba was “astonished at his familiarity with all the equipments of the ship.” His success, to be sure, was that of an unscrupulous, cruel, and worldly man; but the method he used was most excellent, consisting, as it did, in thoughtful consideration of the power of little things. Of all men, the Christian needs to guard himself against the “great little things.” The slightest deviation from the right is a “little” thing which leads to greater and still greater transgression. “The best exercise for the conscience,” says James Freeman Clarke, the great Bible student, “is holding fast its integrity in small things. Here lies the chief temptation to wrong. To tell a small untruth, to utter a little word of unkindness, to cheat in some very unimportant matter,—these are the real temptations of life which beset us.” Therefore, let us be careful of the little things in our lives. The great things come to us so seldom that we are generally quite fully prepared for them. Great temptations repel us, and give us time to resist or escape. The little ones seem too small to be noticed, unworthy of resistance, and therefore conquer us by their sheer littleness. The peasants of Italy are able, by the use of a little powder and a cannon, to drive from their vineyards the great and destructive hail-storms; but the little destroyers are not so easily disposed of. As Solomon says, it is “the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines.” If we take care of the little temptations, the great ones will take care of themselves.