Part of the Day's Run by Annie Burnham Bryant

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 21, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 46.

Part of the Day's Run

By Annie Burnham Bryant

"You make it your business to do a lot of good turns in the course of the day, seems to me, young fellow!" remarked a passenger on an up-town car to the pleasant-faced young conductor who had just patiently helped a particularly helpless old lady to alight safely on the sidewalk.

"Sure!" was the cheerful answer. "Part of the day's run, isn't it?"

"May be, for you!" said the other. "Can't say that it's the regular thing with everybody. But I've happened to ride up and down with you four times to-day, and you've gone out of your way to make things a little less rocky for somebody every trip."

"Have to," said the young man briefly. "'Tisn't going out of your way, either. The chances come in your way. Part of the day's run—that's the way I like to look at it."

The little phrase is well worth tucking away for a pocket-piece. We do not need to get up in the morning and make any mighty resolutions to do great deeds of kindness or benevolence. What we do need is to fill our minds so full of kind and tender thoughts, that a bubbling impulse of helpfulness will characterize all our day's living.

While we are planning to be prompt and punctual and industrious and careful, we want to be sure to add one thing more—the purpose to be helpful. Just take it as a matter of course, as much a regular thing as eating breakfast or going to work or school. Eyes have to be quick and alert to carry out such a purpose. Ears have to be delicately trained till no moan of distress or cry for help shall escape them.

One has to stop being absent-minded, which often means selfish-minded, and try for that "heart at leisure from itself!" which the poet prayed for; since the chance of helpfulness in any particular instance is a gift so fleeting that the least inattention often loses it forever.

On the other hand, one who begins, in ever so small a way, to make it a part of his day's program is quickly and wonderfully rewarded. Every step of his path blossoms thick with opportunities. No "day's run" can be without them.—Annie Burnham Bryant.