Don't Object If Your Duties Appear Insignificant

February 19.

My meat is to do the will of Him
that sent me and to finish His work.

JOHN 4, verse 34.


I am glad to think
I am not bound to make the world go right;
But only to discover and to do,
With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.
I will trust in Him,
That He can hold His own; and I will take
His will, above the work He sendeth me,
To be my chiefest good.

J. INGELOW.


Don't object that your duties are so insignificant;
they are to be reckoned of infinite significance,
and alone important to you. Were it but the
more perfect regulation of your apartments,
the sorting-away of your clothes and trinkets,
the arranging of your papers, "Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might,"
and all thy worth and constancy. Much more, if
your duties are of evidently higher, wider scope;
if you have brothers, sisters, a father, a mother,
weigh earnestly what claim does lie upon you, on
behalf of each, and consider it as the one thing
needful, to pay them more and more honestly
and nobly what you owe. What matter how
miserable one is, if one can do that? That is the
sure and steady disconnection and extinction of
whatsoever miseries one has in this world.

THOMAS CARLYLE.