THE THUNDER OF SILENT FIDELITY:
A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LITTLE THINGS.
Schliemann, uncovering marbles upon which Phidias and his followers
carved out immortality for themselves, has not wrought more effectually
for the increase of knowledge than have those excavators in Egypt who
have uncovered the Rosetta stone, with other manuscripts of brick and
marble. Of all these instructive tablets and tombs, none are more
interesting than one picturing forth a national festival in the Jewish
capital. Upon his canvas of stone the unknown artist portrays for us
Herod's temple with its outer courts and columns and its massive walls.
We see the public square crowded with merchants and traders, who have
come in from the great cities of the world to this festival of the
fathers. With solemn pageantry, these Jews, who were the bankers and
merchants of that far-off age, march through the streets toward the
gate that is called Beautiful. In the vast parade are men notable by
their princely wealth in Ephesus and Antioch, in Alexandria and Rome.
We see one advancing with his retinue of servants, another with the
train which corresponds to his wealth. One group the artist exhibits
as characteristic. Advancing before their lord and master are four
servants, who lift up in the presence of admiring spectators a platter
upon which lies a heap of shining gold. The murmur of admiration that
runs through the crowd is sweeter to the old merchant's ear than any
music of harp or human voice. Passing by the treasury, what gifts are
cast upon the resounding table! How heavy the bars of gold! What
silver plate! What pearls and jewels! How rich the fabrics and
hangings for the temple! As at St. Peter in the sixteenth century, so
in Christ's day it seemed as if the whole world were being swept for
treasures for enriching this glorious temple.
But when the lions of the procession had all passed by, there followed
also the crowd of stragglers. From this post of observation we are
told that Christ saw a poor widow advancing. With falling tears, yet
with exquisite grace and tenderness, she cast in two mites, or one
half-penny, then passed on to worship him whom she loved, all
unconscious of the fact that she had also passed into immortality. For
the noise of the gold falling into the resounding chest has long since
died away. Jerusalem itself is in ruins. The old temple with its
magnificence has gone to decay. The proud thrones and monarchies have
all fallen into dust. But the silent fidelity of this obscure woman is
a voice that thunders down the long aisles of time. A thousand times
hath she encouraged heroism in poet and parent. Ten thousand times
hath she been an inspiration to reformers and martyrs! Love and
fidelity have embalmed her deed and lent her immortality. In the very
center of the world's civilization stands her monument. For her Arc de
Triomphe has been built in the human heart. Her monument does not
appeal to the eye; it is not carved in stone; yet it is more permanent
than gold, and her fame outshines all flashing jewels. While love and
admiration endure the story of her humble fidelity shall abide
indestructible!
The great Italian first noted that thrice only did Christ stretch forth
his hand to build a monument, and each time it was to immortalize a
deed of humble fidelity. Once a disciple gave a cup of cold water to
one of God's little ones, and won thereby imperishable renown. Once a
woman broke an alabaster box for her master, and, lo! her deed has been
like a broken vase, whose perfume has exhaled for two thousand years,
and shall go on diffusing sweetness to the end of time. Last of all,
after the rich men of Alexandria had cast their rattling gold into the
brazen treasury, a poor widow cast a speck of dust called two mites,
and, lo! this humble deed gave her enduring recollection.
It seems that immortal renown is achieved not so much by the solitary
deed of greatness as by humble fidelity to life's details, and that
modest Christian living that regards small deeds and minor duties.
Ours is a world in which life's most perfect gifts and sweetest
blessings are little things. Take away love, daily work, sweet sleep,
and palaces become prisons and gold seems contemptible. The classic
poet tells of Kind [Transcriber's note: King?] Midas, to whom was
offered whatsoever he wished, and whose avarice led him to choose the
golden touch. But lo! his blessing became a curse. Rising to dress he
found himself shivering in a coat with threads of gold. Going into his
garden he stooped to breathe the perfume of the roses, and, lo! the
dewy petals became yellow points that pierced his face. Breakfasting,
the bread became metal in his mouth. Lifting a goblet the water became
a solid mass. Swinging his little daughter in his arms one kiss turned
the sweet child into a cold statue. A single hour availed to drive
happiness from Midas' heart. In an agony of despair he besought the
gods for simple things. He asked for one cup of cold water, one
cluster of fruit and his little daughter's loving heart and hand.
And as with wealth, so wisdom without life's little things is impotent
for happiness. Genius hath its charm; nevertheless, the wisest of men
have also been the saddest of men. The story of literary greatness is
a piteous tale. History tells of many beautiful and gifted girls who
have married scholars for their genius, fame and position. When these
honors were theirs they wakened to discover that all were less than
nothing, since tenderness refused its mite and sympathy gave cot its
cup of cold water. Home and fame became dungeons in which the soul sat
and famished for love's little courtesies.
For no palace was ever so beautiful, no royal wine quaffed from vessels
of gold was ever so sweet as to satisfy hearts famishing for one mite
of that heavenly manna love prepares, or one cup filled with kindness.
Down in a corner of a window of an English palace may be found faint
lines scratched with a woman's diamond. What a tragedy in those words,
"My prison!" It seems the sweet girl, Jane Grey, entered her palace
with a leaping heart, but her lord had no time to break upon her white
forehead the tiny box of life's ointment. Hers was the palace; hers
also a thousand rich gifts called titles, lands, castles, maids of
honor, dresses, jewels. Yet because the castles held no sweet
courtesies the journal of that beautiful girl reminds us of some young
bird that beats with bloody wings against the bars of an iron cage.
For life is made up not of joys few and intense, but of joys many and
gentle. Great happiness is the sum of many small drops. God makes the
days that are channels of mighty and tumultuous joys to be few and far
between. For highly spiced joys exhaust. All who seek intense
pleasure will find not enjoyment but yearnings for enjoyment.
Happiness is in simple things; a cup of cold water, health and a
perfect day; dreamless sleep, honest toil, the esteem of the worthy,
the caresses of little children, a love that waxes with the increasing
years.
Our appreciation of the principle that greatness of any form is an
accumulation of little deeds will be freshened by an outlook upon
nature's method. The old science unveiled the universe as a divine
thought rushing into instant form, stars and suns being sparks struck
out on the anvil of omnipotence. The new science has found that
earth's every atom has been slowly polished by an infinite artisan and
architect. If we descend into the sea we shall find that the reefs and
islands against which the tides of the Pacific dash in vain are built
of coral insects, whose every organ exhibits the delicate skill of a
diamond or snowflake. If we stand upon the fruitful plain where men
build cities we shall discern that each flake of the rich soil
represents the perfect crystallization of drops of melted granite. If
we take the wings of the morning and dwell upon the summit of the
Matterhorn there also we find that the mountain hath its height and
majesty through particles themselves weak and little. For the
geologist who analyzes the topmost peak of the Alpine ridge must go
back to a little flake of mica, that ages and ages ago floated along
some one of earth's rivers, too light to sink, too feeble to find the
fiber of a lichen, therefore dropped into the ooze of mire and decay.
Yet hardened by earth's processes, the day came when that flake of mica
was lifted up upon the mountain's peak, wrought into the strength of
imperishable iron, "rustless by the air, infusible by the flame,
capping the very summit of the Alpine tower. Above it--that little
obscure mica flake--the north winds rage, yet all in vain, below
it--the feeble mica flake--the snowy hills lie bowing themselves like
flocks of sheep, and the distant kingdoms fade away in unregarded
blue." [1] Around it--the weak, wave-drifted mica flake--booms all the
artillery of storms, when electric arrows with blunted points fall back
from its front, as it lifts its might and majesty toward the enduring
stars.
If ages ago the sages said, God is not in the earthquake, nor in the
storm, but in the still small voice, now science reaffirms the
declaration that omnipotence is revealed not so much through awful
cataclysms and earthquake forces as through the silent agents and
hidden processes that make the plains to be fruitful and hillsides to
be rich in corn. In the past astronomy has been the favorite science,
emphasizing the distant stars and suns. The science of the future is
to be chemistry, emphasizing atoms and elements. Journeying outward in
pursuit of the footsteps of God, advancing upon his distant and dizzy
march, man's vision faints and falls upon the horizon beyond which are
indiscernible splendors. Journeying inward upon the wings of the
microscope, we shall find that there is another realm of beauty beyond
which the utmost vision of man cannot pierce. For before the
microscope "the last discernible particle dies out of sight with the
same perfect glory on it as on the last orb that glimmers in the skirts
of the universe." If God is throned in the clouds He is also
tabernacled in the dewdrop and palaced in the bud and blossom.
The history of nations and individuals teaches us that the greatest
gifts are poor and empty and the most signal talents worthless if the
small things be not done, the two mites be not given. For life is
marred by little infelicities and ruined by little errors. The broken
columns and marble heaps in lands where once were cities represent
destructions not so much through tornadoes and earthquakes as through
small vices and unnoticed sins. In modern life also, journeying
through city and forest and field, the economist returns to tell us
that life's chief wastes are through little enemies and foes. It is a
minute bug that steals the golden berry from the wheat; it is a tiny
germ upon the leaf that blights the budding peach and pear, it is a
rough spot upon the potato that fills all Ireland with fear of famine;
it is a worm that bores through the planks of the ship's hull and
alarms old seacaptains as approaching battleships could not.
The enemies of human life are not enemies that fill man's streets with
banners and charging cannon. We wage war against the dust mote
ambushed in the sunbeam; we fight against weapons hurled from those
battleships called drops of impure water; we wrestle with those hosts
whose broadsides invisible rise from streets foul, or fall from
poisoned clouds. Such enemies that lurk in dampness and darkness, a
thousand fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand. That
great catastrophe that overtook Holland a century ago is not explained
by a tidal wave that pierced through the dikes; the disaster was
through the crawfishes that opened tiny holes and, weakening the
bulwarks, let in the onrushing sea.
It was but a trifling error also that robbed the generations of one of
man's divinest pictures. Three hundred years ago the monks made tight
and strong the roof above the room where was Da Vinci's "Last Supper."
A thousand tiles were fastened down and all save one were perfect. The
one hid a secret hole. When months had passed and the driving storm
came from the right direction the rain found out that hidden fault and,
rushing in, a flood of drops streamed down o'er the wall and made a
great black mark across the noble painting, and ruined the central face
forever.
Human life is ruined through the absence of humble virtues and the
presence of little faults. There is no man so great, no gift so
brilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the life
of the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquence
becomes a trick, his authority is impaired. Reading Robert Burns'
poems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all the
humorists, more courtly than princes. His genius blazes like a torch
among the tapers. But watching this son of genius and of liberty weave
a net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, with
wistful hearts we long, as one has said, "to hear the exulting and
triumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise." But
he loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death at
seven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men's
hearts and lives. Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent that
in kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles. What a
constellation of gifts was theirs! Culture, sanity, imagination, wit,
courage, vigor--all these stars were grouped in their mental
constellations! Yet little vices dethroned these kings and made them
plebeian. It is the absence of little virtues and sweet domestic
graces that seem trifling as the two mites that robs the Roman poets
and orators of their power over us. They had urbanites indeed,
flowers, music, art, oratory, letters, song. The events of each day
were executed like a piece of music, and even their sarcophagi were
covered with scenes of feasting and revelry. But they were not true;
and that false note jars through all their pages. Harshness in the
poet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem but
skin deep.
We note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater. The
traveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow. Close
by the calm lake is a boiling spring. In the very heart of the orange
groves rises a column of smoke and steam. "The mist of lava jars on
the music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent of
roses." Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all this
opulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace. Thus the
harshness and selfishness found in the eloquence and poetry of the
ancient writers rob us of all joy in their splendid gifts. We yield
homage only to the greatness that is also goodness. To ten-talent
power the hero must also add tenderness to his own, kindness to the
weak, unfailing sympathy to all. No giant is a full giant until he is
also gentle, stooping to give his two mites to the weak, bearing to the
weary his cup of cold water, ever emulating that hero, Sir Philip
Sydney, wounded sorely indeed, but pushing away the canteen because the
soldier, suffering great pain, had greater need.
In one of his essays Lowell notes that the great reform monuments are
the humble deeds of humble persons, taken up and repeated by an entire
people. The final victories for liberty and religion are emblazoned
upon monuments and celebrated in song and story, but the beginnings of
these achievements for mankind are often given over to obscurity and
forgetfulness. Our age makes much of the "Red Cross" movement. Hardly
fifty years have passed since two English girls boarded the steamer
that was to carry them to the Crimea. Upon the distant battlefields,
with their deserted cannon, wounded horses and dying men, at first
these gentle girls seemed strangely out of place. The hospitals were
full; neglected soldiers were lying in the thickets, whither they had
crawled to die. Counseling with none, these brave girls moved across
the battlefields like angels of mercy. Many years have passed. Now
these nurses bring hope to every battlefield, and minister to every
stricken Armenia, for the story of that sweet girl has filled the earth
with "King's Daughters." One hundred years ago also England left her
orphan babes to grow up in the country poorhouse, midst surroundings
often vulgar, profane and brutal. One day two sweet babes, unnamed and
unwelcomed, lay in the garret of a county-house in the outskirts of
London. Then a poor, half-witted spinster, hearing of the young
mother's death, found her way to the garret, brooded o'er the babes
with all the dignity of our Mother of Sorrows, took the babes to her
heart and planned how, with six shillings a week, she might keep bread
in three hungry mouths. Four years passed by, and one day the lord of
the manor stayed a moment before this woman's hovel and heard her
prayer for the two boys clinging to her skirts. Soon the story of the
woman's mercy was heard in every English pulpit, and in every town men
and women made their way to the county-houses to take away the orphan
babes and found instead some asylum for God's little ones. Now noble
men in distant lands plan homes and shelter for little children, and
the work of the obscure woman is a part of the history of reform.
Humble also is the origin of the anti-slavery movement that won its
final victory at Appomattox. A century and more ago a young Moravian
made his way to Jamaica as a Herald of Christ and his message of
good-will. The horrors of slavery in that far-off time cannot be
understood by our age. Then each week some African slaver landed with
its cargo of naked creatures. Slaves were so cheap that it was simpler
to kill them with rapid work and purchase new ones than to care for the
wants of captives weakened by several summers. What horrors under
overseers in the field! What outrages in slave-market and pen! So
grievous were the wrongs negroes suffered at white men's hands that
they would not listen to this young teacher. At last, despairing of
their confidence, the brave youth had himself sold as a slave and
wrought in the fields under the overseer's lash. Fellowship with their
sufferings won their confidence and love. When the day's task was done
the poor creatures crowded about him to receive Christ's cup of cold
water. Long years after the young hero had fallen upon the sugar
plantation his story came to the ears of young Wilberforce and armed
him with courage invincible against England's traffic in flesh and
blood. Soon Parliament freed the West India slaves and Lincoln
emancipated our freedmen. But side by side with the heroes of liberty
famed through monument and solemn oration, let us mention the young
Moravian hero who loved Christ's little ones, and in giving "two mites
and a cup of cold water," lost his life, indeed, but found immortal
fame.
This modest deed that bought renown also tells us that enduring
remembrance is possible for all. Great deeds the majority cannot do.
Two-talent men march in millions, but the ten-talent men are few and
far between. Many scientists--one Newton. Thousands of poets--but the
Elizabethan eras are separated by centuries. Great is the company of
the orators--but to each generation only one Webster and one Clay. As
each continent hath but one mountain range, so the elect minds stand
isolated in the ages. All greatness is mysterious, and like God's
throne, genius is girt about with clouds and darkness. If great men
are infrequent, the world's need of great men is as occasional.
Society advances in happiness and culture, not through striking,
dramatic acts, but through myriads of unnumbered and unnoticed deeds.
Even the heroes dying upon the battlefield ask not for Plato nor Bacon,
but for a cup of cold water. To Benedict Arnold, dying in his garret,
came a physician, who said, "Is there anything you wish?" and heard
this answer; "Only a friend." Traitors sometimes each of us also.
Traitors to our deepest convictions and our highest ideals, and in the
hours when the fever of discontent burns fiercely within us, and the
mind seems half-delirious in its trouble, we also ask for a friend
bringing a mite of sympathy and a cup of cold water. Let us confess
it--we are all famishing for love and the kind word that says: "In
your Gethsemane you are not alone."
God secures for us our happiness, not through speech about the heavens
and firmament, but through the comfort that comes through speech over
little things. He feeds the birds, adorns the lily, clothes the grass,
numbers man's troubles. He is the Shepherd seeking the one sheep, the
father waiting for the lost son. His kingdom is a little leaven
working in the world's meal, His truth being no larger than a grain of
mustard-seed. Above each little one bows some guardian angel beholding
the face of its heavenly Father. And He who unites grains of sand for
making planets and rays of light for glorious suns, and blades of grass
for the solid splendor of field and pasture and drops of water for the
ocean that blesses every continent with its dew and rain, teaches us
also that great principles will organize the little words, little
prayers, little aspirations and little services into the full-orbed
splendor of an enduring character and an immortal fame.
Happily none need journey far nor search long for opportunities of
humble fidelity. Into our midst come each year thousands of boys who
are strangers in the great city. Passing along the streets these
lonely lads behold each horse having some friendly hand to care for it.
Yea! each sleek dog hath some owner's name engraven on the collar for
the neck. But for the youth, weeks pass by, and no face lifts a
friendly smile, no hand is outstretched in gentle kindness, and oft the
thought is bitter: "No man careth for my soul." The youth who sits in
the seat beside you asks only that the leaflet be shared in
brotherliness, and you may lift upon the discouraged one a smile that
saith; "Once the battle went sore with me, also, but be of good cheer,
you shall overcome." Such friendliness is the two mites that buy
enduring rembrance. For if each must fight his own battles, face for
himself the spectres of doubt, and slay them; if each must be his own
surgeon and draw the iron from the soul, still sympathy is a precious
boon, and it is given to man to give the cup of tenderness to the
warrior sorely wounded in life's battle. In ancient times when men's
cabins were built on the edge of the wilderness, not yet cleared of
wild beasts, sometimes the little ones wandered from the path and were
lost in the forest, until the cry of terror revealed the awful danger
that threatened and caused the mother to speed forth with winged feet
and lift her body as a shield against the enemy. Daily these scenes
are re-enacted, not in songs and dramas, but through the work of those
who rescue the city's children from squalor, filth and sin. What
redemptions' man's little deeds do bring!
For $30,000 Peter Faneuil bought immortality and forever associated his
name with liberty. To-day that amount will erect the social settlement
in the needy quarter of some city and give hundreds of young people
opportunity and field for Bible-schools, kindergartens, nursery,
gymnasium, mothers' classes, men's clubs, singing-schools and also
associate man's name with the happiness and civilization of an entire
community. Mammon will care for the children of strength and good
fortune, and fame will guard the sons of success; let us guard the weak
and lowly. In the Roman triumph, when a general came home with his
spoils, many captives went with his chariot up to the capital. And
happy 'twill be for us if in the hour when the sunset gun shall sound
and we pass beyond the flood God's little ones mourn us with tears of
gratitude while all the trumpets sound for us on the other side.
[1] Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. iv., page 284. [Transcriber's note:
In the original book, there was no footnote symbol in the page where
this footnote appeared. I've made a best guess of its intended
location.]
INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.
"And now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign fought without a general?
If Trafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo
without the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead these
innumerable armies, on whose success depended the future of the whole
human race? Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front,
from the Euxine to the North Sea? No one guide them to the two great
strategic centres of the Black Forest and Trieste? No one cause them,
blind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of war
without which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible: and by
the pressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myriads to an
enterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers of
mortal men? Believe it who will; I cannot.
"But while I believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitates
into its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, ages
since, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed
down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it
at a certain moment and crisis of his life--if I be superstitious
enough (as thank God I am) to hold that Creed, shall I not believe that
though this great war had no general upon earth, it may have had a
general in Heaven; and that in spite of all their sins the hosts of our
forefathers were the hosts of God?"--_Charles Kingsley_.