The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-11-17
Life's Perspective.

THE importance of little things is often
and wisely urged. In one sense, indeed,
nothing is little or trifing, for nothing is
so small or insignificant as to exert no
influence, or demand no attention. Yet
much of the non-success and disappoint-
ment of life comes from failure to dis
criminate between things of vital and
minor Importance. The habit of exag-
gerating little things, and allowing them
to consume the energy that belongs to
the weighty and serious business of life,
is fatal to real greatness in any direction.
Every one who has become eminent in
any walk of life has been able to see the
important points, and separate them
from the web of details in which they
may be involved.
Life may be said to resemble the paint
ing of landscape, in which no beauty
of form or coloring, no delicacy of touch
or force of expression, can atone for the
lack of true perspectire. Unless the OBJ
jects represented assume such proper
tions as to convey to the mind a sense of
their relative distance, the picture is a
failure; and unless our lives show sim
liar discrimination they will be equally
worthless. The value of our time and
talents will greatly depend upon the de-
gree to which we observe these proper
tons. There are people of good abili-
ties and great diligence who rarely seem
to reap the natural fruits of their labor,
because they are so intent upon little de-
tails that they lose sight of their main
objects. The merchant who occupies
every moment in the minuti9 of his bust
ness that his subordinates can do as well;
the master mechanic who works so hard
with his own hands that he overlooks
the dilatoriness of hundred others; the
mother so engaged in providing needless
luxuries for her family that she has no
energy left to develop the minds and
affections of her children; the teacher
WHO'S so intent on conveying technical in
struction that he has no time to instill the
love of knowledge; the statesman SO &C.
cupied with local politics that he forgets
the best interests of his country-all, in
fact, who employ themselves continually
in what is inferior, to the neglect of the
superior, are guilty of this lack of per-
spective. They confuse the small and
the great, the near and the remote, and
their lives are to that extent fiat and un.
meaning.
So it is with expenditures. How few
there are who carry the laws of perspec.
tive into their disbursements, who place
in the foreground the more important
needs of our nature, and pencil lightly
in the distance the least worthy, who
spend for health and comfort, rather
than for fashion and luxury, who plan tc
feed the mind as well as the body, tC
beautify the character as well as tC
adorn the dwelling, to place in rightful
order, with firm hand, all those many
claims that rise up, each so anxious tC
maintain its own supremacy.
Then, too, it is by giving prominence
to the little veXatiOns and troubles of
life that so many lives are worn out, sc
many friendships broken, so many mis-
cries inflicted. Great troubles call fol-
strong self-control, and are often borne
with equanimity, when petty Invitations
are suffered to corrode the temper anC
embtter the soul. Yet when we com
pare them with the real griefs of human
existence, how trit1ing do they appear
and how unworthy part do we seem tC
have played in thus bringing them into
the foreground of our lives! Had WE
been true artists, we should have gently
drawn them in shadow or put them fal
into the background, where they could
not have marred the beauty of our life's
landscape.
An even greater injury results from the
confused ideas which are prevalent il
the estimating right and wrong actions
Mistakes and errors are put on a par with
grave faults. Children are often cen
sured more severely for a thoughtless ACT
that gives trouble or modification thar
for serious offense against truth Oh
justice. Thus they also learn false per.
spective, and acquire the habit of meas.
uring their actions by the immediate
trouble or pleasure which results, instead
of by their intrinsic qualities and the
motives which prompt them.
A clear view of the true character of
actions would at once put an end to most
of the backbiting, SANDER and gossip
which now pollute so many lips. The
smaller faults of our neighbors, on which
we descant with so much fiuency, would
then sink to their true level of insignifi-
canoe, and we stand abashed at having
drawn them into such unjust prominence.
The chief cause of the confusion and
false arrangement is that we drift, in
stead OF stemming the current of our
lives. We accept without question the
popular standard we see erected and the
Impressions we receive. Did we but
pause to examine, to sift, to investigate
to put all things to the test of sound
reason and pure heart, we should soon
become able to recognize the relative
proportion of truths and duties, and to
give them their just places in the per-
spective of life Philadelphia Ledger.
Beecher Opinion of His Nephew.
AT Plymouth Church Mr.. Beecher last