| J.R. MIller | Page 3 |
Yet there is always danger that we come to be contented with our routine and indisposed to go beyond it. We must always do the same daily tasks, never omitting any of them, never neglecting the least duty, however dull or prosaic. But, besides this monotonous round, and in it, there should always be something larger going on. “Ye have compassed — gone round — this mountain long enough: turn you northward,”We must not let our life run forever and only in a little circle, but must reach out, learn new lessons, venture into new lines, leave our narrow past, and grow into something that means more. Our daily walk should be like that of one whose path goes about a mountain, moving in a circle, perhaps, but climbing a little higher with each circuit, pursuing a sort of spiral course, constantly ascending the pyramidal peak, until at last he reaches the clear summit and looks into the face of God.
Narrowness is a constant peril, especially for those whose lives are plain and without distinction, the two-talented men and women, the common people whom, Mr. Lincoln said, God must love, because he made so many of them. They must do chiefly tasks that are set for them. They do, all their life, some one little thing over and over. It is not easy to live an ever-widening life in such conditions. We are apt to let our immortality shrink into the measure of the little place we fill in the world. Yet it is possible, though our daily round be so small, to keep our mind free and be ever reaching out in sublime flights. There are men who work year after year in some small department of business, and then spend the hours outside of business in some line of work or research in which they are ever growing in knowledge, in mental breadth, into larger, stronger, better, and worthier men.
That is the way the lesson shapes itself for many of us. We must not allow our narrow occupation to dwarf our souls. Our work itself is valuable and noble, and we must never be ashamed of it and must do it with zest and enthusiasm. Then while we do our little allotment of lowly duty faithfully, we must never permit our minds to dwarf or shrivel, but must continually train ourselves into larger things. Instead of hugging our little mountains and never going off the old paths, we should turn northward and find delight in new fields. This is a large would, and we live most inadequately when we stay all our life in a little one-acre lot.
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