p. 146 | Our Littleness

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 25, 1871

Our Littleness.

IN the midst of our manifold doings, and exultant over the successes we gain, we are prone to self-glorification. Nor is this strange. It becomes a man to think well of himself. It is fit that he should take some pride in the things he accomplishes. Unless he does this, he will very likely lose all heart in his work, and, thoroughly discouraged, will fall away into idleness and inanition.

But when we come to put ourselves and our accomplishments first and foremost in our thought continually—when we are unduly lifted up in the belief that our power is mighty and our doing irresistible—then are we in most positive danger. Then should we pause and measure ourselves by a truer measurement than the little successes we so much magnify. Then should we go out somewhere amid God's marvelous works, and see how in comparison our own doings dwindle into insignificance.

Human greatness is a little thing, at the best. Exalt it as we may, if we judge it as it ought to be judged, it seems of small importance. It is pleasant to think of some deed done that wins a world's applause and the nation's honor; but what avails it after all? Does it render us any the less creatures of mortality and victims of the grave? Will it help us to make fight against time, and defy his ravages? Sad indeed is it for the man who can stand out under the stars, or pace the vessel's deck alone in mid-ocean, or look up at stupendous mountain-piles, and glorify himself in his own heart. Sad, because some time there will come such a sense of individual littleness into his soul as shall well-nigh crush him. Sad, because in his mistakenness, he will walk on in his feeble strength and at length fall hopelessly. Sad again, and doubly so, because trusting in himself so implicitly, he will miss the truer strength which trust in divine greatness will surely bring, and at the last, in his weakness and littleness, will bewail his foolishness with bewailings all the more touching for being futile.—Rural New Yorker.