Little Things by Joseph Clarke

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 31, 1857

Little Things.

By Joseph Clarke

"In all things be circumspect." Ex. xxiii, 9.

At the commencement of the late Crimean war, the two combined armies of France and England landed at nearly the same time, upon the Crimean shore. The French army at once landed, filed in regular order upon the shore, pitched their tents in beautiful style, and had taken food before the British troops had fairly landed; and throughout the whole war, the French troops were better off in every respect than the British, and did a great deal more service, upon less money per man.

What made this vast difference? Was the Frenchman bravest? No. Was he more ambitious? No. What was the reason that the French troops were not surprised, nor starved, nor frozen?

The reason was this: the French were in practice, and attended to, and understood the minutiae of war; in other words, cared for little things. The pitching of a tent was as well understood as the laying off a camp. Everything was understood. Even the commanding officers, as well as the meanest soldier, had been trained to the minutiae of the camp and battlefield. As much order in driving a stake, or tying a tent-rope, as in forming the line of battle.

Not so with the British troops. Raw recruits from the factory, or Irish from the peat bog, or troops from India, enervated by a tropical climate, officers who had been trained in the ball-room and theatre: they were poorly qualified to resist the cold winds of a Crimean Winter and the hardy troops of Russia, or to sustain military credit side by side with well trained French troops.

I am no apologist for war: war is legalized wholesale murder; but I wish to show the importance of placing proper weight upon the minutiae of the Christian life.

"See that thou make all things according to the pattern," was the direction given to Moses. "But we live under the gospel dispensation," is the excuse given for neglect and carelessness. An instance to the point. A woman who had been convicted of incest, being remonstrated with, replied that "we were not now under the law of Moses, but under Christ." And now when a reform in dress, or diet, is urged, or in anything where reform is necessary, we hear the same excuse, "O, we are under Christ." This is the excuse for indecency in dress, for extravagance, and hardly a form or shade of evil, but it is excused in this way.

A man who was spoken to on the sin of using tobacco, replied that we might eat any deadly thing and it should not hurt us. When men use such methods of evading the truth, I often think of the woman above mentioned. In every radical reform of diet, or dress, or custom, the church should lead the van, not bring up the rear.

JOSEPH CLARKE.