Duties of Daily Life

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1858

Duties of Daily Life.

Life is not entirely made up of great evils or heavy trials; but the perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials, is the ordinary and appointed exercise of the Christian graces. To bear with the failings of those about us—with their influence, their bad judgment, their ill breeding, their perverse tempers—to endure neglect when we feel we deserved attention, and ingratitude when we expected thanks—to bear with the company of disagreeable people whom Providence has placed in our way, and whom he has provided or purposed for the trial of our virtue—these are the best exercises of patience and self-denial, and the better because not chosen by ourselves. To bear with vexation in business, with disappointment in our expectations, with interruptions of our retirement, with folly, intrusion, disturbance—in short, with whatever opposes our will, contradicts our humor—this habitual acquiescence appears to be more of the essence of self-denial than any little rigors or afflictions of our own imposing. These constant, inevitable, but inferior evils, properly improved, furnish a good moral discipline, and might, in the days of ignorance, have superseded pilgrimage and penance.