Our Influence by Ida Nelson-Nethery

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Sep 4, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 36.

Our Influence

By Ida Nelson-Nethery

As we go on our daily rounds doing our daily tasks, do we realize the extent of our influence on the people with whom we come in contact? Do we realize that by our words, deeds, and actions we are casting shadow or making sunshine wherever we go? Each one of us, no matter how rich or poor, how high or lowly may be our station, has an influence which affects all we meet no matter what their station. We can not be independent of each other. God has ordained it so, and it is a responsibility from which we can not free ourselves.

So, likewise, are we ourselves influenced by those with whom we come in contact. Especially are we influenced by those whom we have learned to love and respect—those whom we count older and wiser than ourselves. Is it not then a fact that our influence is great, either for good or for evil, over the children in our ranks? They will imitate our manner of speaking, our dress, our habits, and in short everything they see done by those older than themselves. Especially is this true of the little ones. If you write, they want paper and pencil. If you sew, needle and thread they also must have. If you hoe, chop, or sing, the children will go and do likewise. It is their greatest desire to be like those who are older, to be grown-up, to be a man or a woman.

I once knew a minister, a missionary to one of our foreign fields, who had a little boy whose greatest desire was to be like his father in every way. The little fellow was to have his hair cut one day, and very imploringly requested that it might be cut just like his father's. This was not done, however, his father being very baldheaded. Does this not affirm that older ones have a great influence over the children? How it behooves us, then, to be careful in all our habits. How easily children will pick up slang, a habit easily acquired but not so easy to cast aside.

How little we realize the influence of our words!

"Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds, But you can't do that way when you are flying words."

The Lord knew how easy it was for us to sin in this when He said, "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."

The Lord has given us the grand talent of speech to be used in His service. Let us use it, then, in cheering up the children with whom we come in contact. Give them a kind word; encourage them to do their best, their very best, in whatever they undertake. If they do well, tell them so. A word of praise is not flattery, and like a medicine it will tone up the children. It benefits the giver as well as the recipient. Try it, if you have not already, and see the pleasing effect it has upon the children. Let us stir up every good quality in their lives. Let us by our influence create or encourage a desire in their little hearts to be missionaries for Jesus, to be all that Christ desires that they should be. Let us use our whole influence for good. We will be greatly blessed in so doing; for everything that one does in life has a reaction, an echo which either applauds or condemns the deed, and is ever afterward a lasting reminder of nobility or baseness. Wherever we are we will hear echoes of what we have done; whether pleasant or disagreeable, they will be continually coming back to us in memory waves and will tend to make us happy or miserable. If you have said a kind word that helped lift a life out of unpleasantness, if you stirred to action the sleeping energies of some noble life, then will this echo speak to you:

"Sunshine-making is a blessed task; Cheery hearts, like lovely wide blue sky, Banish weary gloom and give fresh hope, Check the rising tear or thoughtless sigh." "Put the golden sunshine in each day; Others need the cheer that comes thru you— Need it most when outer sky's dull gray Leaves the sunshine-making yours to do."

It is not always the most talkative who are most influential. A star does not talk, but its calm, steady beam shines down continually out of the sky and is a benediction to many. A flower can not sing bird-songs, but its sweet beauty and gentle fragrance makes it a blessing wherever it is seen.

"Be like a star in your peaceful shining, and many will thank God for your life. Be like a flower in your pure beauty, and in the influence of your unselfish spirit, and you may do more to bless the world than many who talk incessantly."

Let us make these few lines our daily prayer:

"If any little word of mine May make a life the brighter; If any little song of mine May make a heart the lighter, God help me speak the little word And take my bit of singing And drop it in some lonely vale And set the echoes ringing."

Sheridan, Wyo.