Article September 14, 1907 Issue

THE TEST OF SMALL THINGS

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

The tendency of human thought is to leap to the realization of its ideal without reckoning the countless stages of progress which must lead it thereto. Mortals become fired with the thought of doing brilliant things, which loom large against the horizon, but they often forget, until reminded by disappointment, that mountain heights appear deceptively close at hand, and that a long toilsome journey and much difficult climbing are required to reach the summit.

Many of us have had occasion to remember this in our experience as students of Christian Science. The healing of dire troubles, and the ready response to our new-born faith in Truth, cleared the mental atmosphere so that the attainment of our complete freedom from error seemed almost within reach; but we miscalculated the distance of that spiritual altitude. We had not then realized how many footsteps upward are needed to cover the distance between us and the consciousness of man's spiritual perfection; nor had we discovered the apparent strength of the cords that bind us to earth, linking us to the belief of sensuous human nature with their myriad small strands, which must all be broken before thought can wholly rise above the flesh and sin. Our early efforts brought the freedom to work intelligently at our problems, but the sanguine expectation that every error would immediately disappear before our declaration of the truth, became tempered by experience, in which we learned that salvation involves work,—hard, plodding, patient work,—and that we receive from divine Principle not according to our desires, but according to our deserts.

The truest test of worthiness is often the willingness to work earnestly at the solution of small problems, to overcome petty errors and discords, and to labor patiently in the secret of our own thought,—not for the rewards of men, but for the sake of becoming a little more Godlike. We do not grow into absolute goodness at once, for this growth means the assimilation of the Divine nature, and its measure is not manifest in the doing of a few great things so much as in our conduct in the common round of daily existence, and under the almost constant small fire of the enemy. So long as it is an effort to be kind in the face of provocation, calm in the midst of business or household cares and perplexities, sweet in the face of misrepresentation and scorn, patient in the midst of annoying and vexatious conditions, loving and tender at the touch of anger or revenge, we have not risen to that spontaneous reflection of goodness and love which characterizes the ideal Christian Scientist. So long as it is easier for us to return evil for evil in place of good, to listen to rather than silence the suggestions of selfishness and kindred errors, we are not yielding self to the Divine control, and cannot therefore meet those larger duties that demand the entire consecration of our thought to God.

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