LITTLE DUTIES | AdventAI

The S.D.A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1880

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 14

LITTLE DUTIES.

A LETTER-CARRIER in one of our large cities, a few months ago, found on reaching the postoffice, after a long round of delivery, a letter in his bag that he had overlooked. It would have taken him half an hour to return and deliver it. He was very tired and hungry. The letter was an ordinary, unimportant-looking missive. He thrust it into his pocket and delivered it on his first round next day.

What consequences followed? For want of that letter a great firm had failed to meet their engagements; their notes had gone to protest; a mill closed and hundreds of poor workmen were thrown out of employment.

The letter-carrier himself was discharged for his oversight and neglect. His family suffered during the winter for many of the necessaries of life, but his loss was of small account compared to the enormous amount of misery caused by his single failure in duty.

Another case: A mechanic who had been out of work a long time in New York went last September to collect a small sum due to him. The gentleman who owed it, being annoyed at some trifle, irritably refused the money. The man went to his wretched home and, maddened by the sight of his hungry wife and children, went out to the back-yard and hanged himself.

The next day an old employer sent to offer him a permanent situation. There was a life lost and a family left paupers because a bill of a dollar or two was not paid at the right time.

The old Spanish proverb says, “There is no such thing as a trifle in the world.” When we think how inextricably the lives of all mankind are tangled together, it seems as if every word or action moved a lever which set in motion a gigantic machinery, whose effect is wholly beyond our control. For this reason, if for no other, let us be careful to perform promptly and well the duties of life—even the most trivial.