Little Ministers

John B. Willis

For the most part for all, and altogether for the many, life is made up of a multiplicity of incidentals. Hence for those to whom these have only their superficial significance the bulk of experience is relatively meaningless. The unfathomed inconsiderables of "the daily round" may serve to consume time, but they utterly fail to constitute true living. When, however, little things become symbolic or otherwise suggestive of large things, in our thought, then we may both minister and be ministered to every hour of the day, since little things are always in sight and little events are always happening, even as little words of illumination and little deeds of kindness are always possible. The value of our gains from these lesser experiences is limited only by the depth of our vision, our capacity to interpret. Tennyson put this finely when he wrote of the flower in a "crannied wall,"—

If I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

A physicist would probably say that the man who succeeds in making an atom fully intelligible will have mastered all the secrets of the universe, and however extravagant this may seem, it is certainly true that the compass and apprehension of the least divine idea opens the door to the command of all true wisdom. "He is a true teacher," says Professor Curry, "who can direct the attention of others to the deepest truths in the least things;" and in this too Christ Jesus was ever "the greatest." When he counseled men to "consider the lilies of the field," he linked the observation of a wayside flower to the discovery of immeasurable values. In this he disclosed the genius of the teacher and the art of the poet,—yes, and more for us, namely, the art of thinking right and doing good. Pleasure finding and pleasure giving may be well worth while, but to perceive the spiritual truth symbolized or suggested in a trivial thing, and to lead others tactfully to the same discernment, is to be both inspired and inspiring. The perception of the deeper meaning, the heart of little things about us, will minister both to our spiritual exaltation and to our usefulness no less surely than did the starlit firmament to him who, rapturously beholding it, exclaimed, "The heavens declare the glory of God."

We become not only poets but prophets, "a light to lighten" all we meet, in the measure of our spiritual insight; and like every other grace this is to be thoughtfully cultivated, until for us there are no longer any little things, and we cease to barricade our way to the possession of greatness by indifference to its least beginnings. A beam of kindliness may become a lifetime benediction. The writer once looked into Whittier's face when it was compassed by a smile whose radiant wealth has never been forgotten. It was like a burst of morning sunshine after a week of rain.

Men remain unperceptive, hence uninterpretive, because they are unthoughtful and unobserving, and it is this fact which renders the statement on the first page of the Preface of Science and Health, "The time for thinkers has come," such a clarion call. Soul-sensitiveness, better named intuition, is usually thought of as an endowment, but in an important sense it is also an acquisition. The opening of a shutter does not create the light, but it does let it in, and our possibilities of growth and of usefulness are increased a thousandfold the moment we purposely begin to coordinate so-called trifles with infinite Truth. A great man has said that the highest interest of a flower is not its fragrance or beauty, but its concreteness. We may have talked much of law and order and other abstractions, but they have been without real content. Here in a single bloom we have the miracle itself. It ushers us at once into the presence of an inscrutable intelligence, an infinite beauty, and no possible experience can do more.

Every true Christian Scientist is on the qui vive. He is made alert by the constant expectation of the discovery of good, and more and more he learns both to gain and to give through the ministry of little things.

John B. Willis.

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Lecture in The Mother Church

October 2, 1915

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