The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-12-16
"DO the Duty That Lies Next YOu."

spend their lives in wishing and look
ing for spheres" The ambition to
do something to help on the slow ad-
vance of the world is widespread. They
are few, indeed, whose lives are so CEN
tered in self that no longing to touch
with healing power the intirmltles OF
their fellows ever comes to them.
Those even who have condemned them
selves to the slavery of mere routine, in
the diary of whose lives the entries of
each day are identical year in and out,
are visited by inspiring glimpses OF the
possibilities of the larger life whose APP
peals neither toll nor care nor inditfer-
ence ever entirely silence. Most men
and women begin life with purposes
more or less noble and with impulses
more or less generous. They do not
consciously abdicate their rights in that
rich heritage of work and power to
which all are born who are strong
enough to make their way into it and
faithful enough to STAY when they have
made an entrance. Yet of all the multi
tudes who cherish this hope how few
find the sphere of activity and useful
ness for which they long! Society IS
full. too, of discontinued people wan
dering up and down from one profess
sion to another, changing from COM
munity to community and from church
to church in search of what they call
their "sphere;" but the sphere is never
found. What is the trouble? Is the
demand for spheres larger than the
supply?
The difficulty is not with the
"spheres. but with the men and
women who are seeking them. No
body who went searching for sphere
ever found one. Our spheres are not
favorable conditions or large Opportu-
mites made ready for our coming; we
make them for ourselves. These gen.
erous ambitions which stir from time to
time the dead level of our business and
our pleasures are not there to mock us;
they stands for facts as real as the in
vestments we have made or acres we
have planted. Many of us are so
hemmed in by circumstances apparently
adverse, shut up by poverty, weakness,
disease. lack of education, that the
aspirations which fill us with longing
to render some great service to the
Master seem at times like a bitter
mockery of our condition. But God
never prompts us to do that which is
impossible, never mOcks the barrenness
of our conditions with the mirage OF
grand possibility.
There is a sphere of true and noble
living for every one who chooses to make
it. but it is not at a distance and with
surroundings that inspire splendid Ell
fort by the applause of host of spec
tators; it is in our own community and
among our own neighbors. Every man
who is striving to make the most OF
such opportunities as lie along the path
way of life is making the sphere which
God has kept waiting for him. and
doing the special work which God has
ASSIGNED him. This lesson is hard to
learn, and so the Scriptures repeat it
again and again under a great variety
of forms; and Christ's life, continually
breaking through its limitations by
force of its own personality, is its
browning example. If the call comes
from Macedonia, we heed it because
there is in it the suggestion OF a great
field and lasting work; but, II we
cannot follow, we do nothing, and lay
the blame on the adverse circumstances
that shut us from the grand cpportuni-
ties of life; and all the time, on the
next block or in the next street, there
is a need as pressing, sphere of work
and influence as noble as any in Mace
donia.
You can repeat the story of the Good
Samaritan without going to the road
from Jerusalem to Jericho; you can put
Paurs zeal and earnestness into your
life without journeying through Asia
and Greece to Rome.
The experience of a sincere and wise
seeker after truth, who has already
touched and inspired two generations
and is to be q teacher for generations
vet to come, ought to have weight
with those who will not accept this
truth from revelation. Thomas Car
lyle has given long life to such in
tenselv earnest search for the truest
and best things as has rarely been seen
| in the history of the world. He has
drank at all the fountains of knowl-
edge, traversed the wide field of his
tory, mastered the thinking of the gen.
erations on the deep questions OF life,
and the outcome of all knowledge and
experience he sums up in the phrase.
do the duty that lies next you." "
Philosophy and religion are in harmony
| in this simple statement of the secret OF
true living.
The next duty may seem me 4, may
be so small that we overlook it at the
first glance, but is the one thing to be
done if the path is ever to grow wider,