FRAGMENTS by P. Giddings

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 2, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 34.

FRAGMENTS.

By P. Giddings

BY P. GIDDINGS.

1. SOME people never hit because they never fire, they only aim. They spend their time making good aims. They would fire but they are afraid they might miss, and they wouldn't miss for anything. They aim until the bird is flown, then regret that it flew away so soon. Every good object is your bird. Every opportunity is your powder. Aim and fire. It is good to be cautious, but let us be cautious lest we be too cautious. There is a nicety of difference between overcautiousness and cowardice, too fine for distinction.

2. Many a mite makes a might. Methuselah was 969 years old; but there was a time when he was only one day old, then two days, and thus he kept on until he reached that point. If you would attain to great things, take care of small things. If you would be a great man, be a great boy. Gentlemen grow out of gentle boys. What we call great things are simply the aggregate of small ones. No man ever lives a year, no, not even a day. We live only a moment. It is past, then the next, and so on. Live your minutes well and your life will be a success. It is the summing up of these good minutes—these are the aggregate units—which makes a good life, and is represented on the other side of the equation by the "unknown quantity," which we call "the indeterminate progression of blissful eternity."

3. The treatment we receive from others is generally but the echo returned from the voice of our conduct.

4. Where is the logic or Christianity in men saying "Our Father," and disowning each other as brothers?

5. It is not how much we know, but how much we do. It is not how much we do, but how well we do it.

6. It takes more than eyes to see. Try it on a dark night. Worldly wisdom, unassisted by divine illumination, can no more discern spiritual truths than eyes alone can see objects on a dark night. Your wisdom is as helpless as ignorance in spiritual things unless God helps you, my brother. "Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." Proud infidel, do you wonder why you do not see the happy truths and the glorious beyond in which the humble Christian finds exceeding joy? We do not wonder. We commend your truthfulness in saying you do not see anything, for indeed you do not and you cannot. You are in Egyptian darkness. Pray for light, and the objects over which you are stumbling will be as clear as day. It is not the sight of human wisdom you need. It is God's light to refract the object to your dilated but practically blind eyes. The light says to your eyes, "Without me you can see nothing."

7. A man may be many. But it depends on unselfishness. The grain that keeps on a hard, dry, sunny surface, where it can best enjoy itself, will always be one grain; but if it would allow itself to be buried for a while under the soil, it will rise, and in due time

that one grain will be many. Some men develop, others envelop. That man who grows out, expands. That man who grows in, contracts. Self-centered and self-absorbed, he lived one, died one, unfruitful as the very rock. But that man whose life's usefulness and influence touch other men and inspire for good, that man whose soul's sympathy and helpfulness grow out toward other men, and encourage and help them to produce like fruits, this man is as many men as he has thus produced. What man will not have the ambition to thus multiply himself into many men?

8. It is a sin to go to church—well, wait and let me finish—it is a sin to go to church when you ought to stay at home and attend that poor, suffering parent or friend who so much needs your presence and your service. It is but a decent way of running away from duty. It is a sin to pray—well, let me explain—it is a sin to pray that God may feed the hungry when he has given you the food to feed them and you won't. It is mockery, and "God is not mocked."

9. It is mockery to pray that God will send the gospel to the heathen when he sends you to take it, and you won't go, or asks you to contribute yours, and you won't give.

10. Mutual dependence and interchanging helpfulness are the law of creation. "No man liveth to himself alone." Nothing exists for itself, but for some other thing, or things. We might have been made with one hand, but we have two. The right hand may wash the back of the left, and the left that of the right. We might have had one leg, one eye, one ear, but we have two. The silent suggestion is mutuality and harmony. Again, nothing naturally exists, beneficially, as a primal or solitary constituent. The very air, so clear that we see straight through, so fine that we cannot see it, is not one element, but a combination of elements. The most transparent liquid is not simplex but complex. Everything unselfishly exists for something else. The soil is made that plants may grow. Plants grow for beasts and man; beasts exist for the service of man; man exists for the pleasure of God; and even God (we say it reverently and thankfully) exists to furnish us all our needs. Each in his turn for the benefit of some other. What would you think of that tree of oranges which forbade men to pick the fruits, because they were hers? What do you think of that man who keeps the products of his life, whatever they may be, from benefiting others, because they are his? We get that we may give, and there is more blessing in the latter than in the former, for it is written, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

11. A person may be so busy as to forget his business. Martha was a busy woman, but her busyness caused her to neglect her business. We will find in this world many busy people—so busy minding, yes, and mouthing too (they will never touch it with their hands)—so idly busy with other people's business that they have no time to do their own. Peter calls them "busy bodies in other men's matters," and we have no better name for them. Would that such would heed Paul's advice, "Study to do your own business."

12. "Learn of me," says Christ. Some would be Christians like some schoolboys attend school, but they do not learn. Like the idle fellow, while the other boys are trying hard to learn some difficult lesson, failing repeatedly, perhaps, this good-for-nothing-else Christian is criticising and drawing caricatures of the trying ones. But it is the student who tries and fails, and tries again and again, that makes the scholar at last, mental or spiritual. "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart," says Christ. How many calling themselves Christians never learn this lesson! But the only text-book in Christ's school is that entitled Humility, himself the Author of the book, himself the Teacher of all those who study that book. He says, "Learn of me." No other scholar, from any other school or Sanhedrin, can compete with his. "Learn of me;" never man taught like this Man.