little one slipt a sixpence shyly into his hand with the request that he use it for something special. He bought with it a prayer-book, and gave it to a poor work-*house girl who had been sent from England to go into service on an Australian farm. She promised to read it faithfully. Several weeks later a rough-looking man came and asked him if he were the person who had given his servant a prayer-book. His wife was very ill and wanted to see him. Altho it was twenty miles inland, the clergyman went and ministered to the poor woman. A little while later the man came once more to the minister and said that he and his neighbors had built a little church and paid for it and wanted him to come and conduct services among them. Thus an entirely new work was opened as a result of the little child's sixpence.
(1864)
See Child's Gift.
LITTLE SINS
And I am afraid of little sins because they
grow so great. No one can tell whereunto
sin will lead. The beginnings of sin are
like the leakings of water from a mighty
reservoir; first an innocent ooze, then a
drip, then a tiny stream, then a larger vein,
then a flood, and the rampart gives way and
the town is swept to ruin. The habits of sin
are like the habits of burglars, who sometimes
take a little fellow and put him
through a window too small for a man to
enter, and the child must open the door for
the burglar gang to pass. So with little
sins; they creep in and open the door for
larger to enter. A little sin is the thin
edge of the wedge, and when once inserted
it can be driven home till it splits and ruins
the life.—A. H. C. Morse.
(1865)
I remember, when a lad, the so-called army-*worms first swept across the fields. They went straight ahead, and moved like a mighty host with captains. They were little things, but when they were gone the fields looked as tho they had been swept by a fire. So a thousand little wrongs in the life can rob it of beauty as really as one great, blazing, public transgression.—A. H. C. Morse.
(1866)
I am afraid of little sins because they involve a great principle. You go into a bank with a check for $1,000, and in his hurry the clerk passes out $1,100, and you walk out of the bank with that sum. You agree with me, I suppose, that you do a dishonest thing—that you have stolen $100. Would it not be the same if your check called for $5, and he gave you $6 by mistake? You ride on a train to Boston, and by some oversight your ticket is not collected, and you ride back on that very same ticket. You agree with me that the thing is wrong. Is it not the same when you ride on a trolley car and elude the conductor, or slip past the gateman and enter the train? In either case the man is a thief.—A. H. C. Morse.
(1867)
LITTLE THINGS
We belong to a scheme of nature in which the chief factor is the infinitesimal. The composition of the elements depends on the multitudinous accretions of particles. We are most in danger when we overlook the power of mere atoms to affect us, and when we despise trivial causes of mischief.
A cathedral clock with its musical chimes
suddenly stopt intoning its sacred and beautiful
melodies. The cause was for a time a
perplexity, as nothing could be discovered to
have gone wrong with the machinery of the
chimes. But at length it was found that a
frail brown butterfly had become entangled
in the wheelworks, and had brought to a
complete standstill the clock and its chimes.
(Text.)
(1868)
Dr. S. P. Henson says:
What a multitude of threads make up a
fringe; and yet how beautiful and costly
when completed! And here is found a
beauty of the real Christian life. There are
not a few who may be willing upon rare
and notable occasions to do or suffer some
great thing, but the ten thousand little things
of life are entirely beneath their notice, as
they also suppose them to be beneath the
notice of the Lord. (Text.)
(1869)
See Faith in God.
Lives Corresponding to the Bible—See
Native Converts.
LIVES THAT SHINE
Don't waste your time in longing
For bright, impossible things;
Don't sit supinely yearning
For the swiftness of angel wings;
