Your ShelfYour Projects

LARGE LITTLES

25%

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 7, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 14.

Read the full edition

LARGE LITTLES.

By Dr. Bonar

Did a holy life consist of one or two noble deeds—some signal specimens of doing, or enduring, or suffering—we might account for the failure, or reckon it small dishonor to turn back in such a conflict. But a holy life is made up of the small things of the hour, and not the great things of the age that fill up a life like that of Paul or John, like that of Rutherford, or Brainard, or Martyn.
The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and impudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self and of flesh, little acts of indolence or indicision, or slovenliness, or cowardice, little equivocations or aberrations from high integrity, little touches of shabbiness and meanness, little bits of covetousness and penuriousness, little exhibitions of worldliness and gayety, little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of temper, or crossness, or selfishness, or vanity; the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of holy life. And then attention to little duties of the day and hour, in public transactions, or private dealings, or family arrangements; to little words, and looks, and tones; little self-denials, and self-restraints, and self-forgetfulness; little plans of kindness and thoughtful consideration for others; to punctuality, and method, and true aim in the ordering of each day—these are the active developments of holy life, the rich and divine mosaics of which it is composed.
What makes yon green hill so beautiful? Not the outstanding peak of stately elm, but the bright sward which clothes its slopes, composed of innumerable blades of slender grass. It is of small things that a great life is made up; and he who will acknowledge no life as great save that which is built up of great things, will find little in Bible character to admire or copy.—Dr. Bonar.