Arizona republican., 1899-03-05
OUR SUNDAY SERMON
What Can Come Out of Com.
 mon Little Lives
God Does Not do Things by Leaps and Bounds, but in Regularly, Orderly, Patient waYS-SO With Mans Best Work.

Well done, thou good servant; be-
 cause thou hast been faithful in very ] little, have thou authority over ten
 cities. Luke Xix: F.
 Every one will recognize these words as belonging to the Masters answer
 t0 the first servant in the parahle ot
 the talents. He was given one talent
 or pound. which he straightTay in vested; and when his Lord comes he has, instead of the one pound, ten pounds to return. The point of inter
 est is to be found in the fact that the
 servant did not despise his opportunity
 My purpose would be served nearly
 as well, perhaps, with the answer Of
 the third servant, Lord, behold here
 is thy pound which I have kept laid
 IL. in a napkin' Probably one reason
 Of this action was to be found in the
 fact that the man had so very little to
 use. It seemed to him commonplace sc small it was hardly worth investing
 The easiest thing was simply to keep it
 ard give it back when his Lord came
 What was he? A poor, unworthy ser
 want! What were his opportunities?
 Poor and mean at the bestI What
 could he do with his common little
 life? Not much, surely; and so he un-
 dervalued the whole thing and threw
 away his opportunities.
 There is a good dead of that same
 spirit in the world today We think Cf our lives as common, of our oppor- tunIties as pcor and mean, and so We come at last to underestimate the com mon day, with it's common task; to un- der estimate the common event with it's common settings, and altogether to oVerestimate the occasional day with its occasional task. 1 would like to hold the thought before you that. when looked at from a high point Of view, there are really no common days, nor common lives, nor common events. So long as they are linked with some genuine moral purpose. And yet things really d0 seem common, even commonplace, and we grow tired of them. Why is it?
 Familiarity without appreciation makes things seem commonplace. Sup posing the moon were to rise only once yeaT-then, whether seen in crescent or with it's full face of light, we should all turn out even at midnight to see it: but we have grown familiar with the sight, and so, perhaps, careless. Yet to the heart with appreciation it is still just as silvery, just as beautiful just as wonderful as it ever was Men will prepare for months ahead for an eclipse of the sun, and all the world stands gazing in wonder before the creeping shadow which slowly shuts out the light of day. But every day of the suns shining, with it's warmth and light and comfort and life-giving pow CT, is a thOusandfCld more wonderful than the eclipse
 l remember with what wonder I took my first kuruma ride through the streets of a Japanese city. Everything l saw. from the curious little wagon in which l was riding, the queer little people sWarming around me, the strange little bandbox houses and shops, to the wonderful five-story pa goda and the old mediaevaI castle. | seemed nothing less than marvellous to me. I felt if 1 were to stay in the country for fifty years the wonder of it ! would never Tass away. But it was the same old story. l actually lived | there only four years, and long before | left I could ride from end to end of | the great city of Tokyo without a sin gle thrill of wonder. Our own land, | cur streets, our city, our people are just | as wonderful to the eyes of the strang- er; there isn't commonplace spot in | lis own town to man of appreciation who has not lost the art of seeing 1 things
 So it is with our lives: they are not common and never commonplace, save 10 him who grows too familiar to see the wonder and the glory contained herein Sometimes 1 go to a carpen- -er's shop and see a man skiIlfully Ising tool after tcol with a dexterity and intelligence that seem to me scarcely less than marvellous. But the poor carpenter tolls away day after lay for what he regards as poor wages, 2erhaps discontented, troubled, weary with his lot, disgusted with life and onging to fly away from it all It is because it is too familiar 10 into a great cotton mill and look or the first time upon a marvellous machine in operation. But what will he poor weaver tell you if you ask him what he thinks about it? The wonder s all gone; perhaps all gone, interest III gone; perhaps little save loatnipg eft. And yet, really in all these pheres what the uninitiated sees is here. It is curious, it is wonderful, it $ interesting to the last degree, only he one who is living in it has grown @ familiar with it that his interest is III gone and he becomes weary and 
 So in every walk and every work in fife. The housekeeper feels it, the eacher feels it. the lawyer feels it, the mechanic feels it, and each one comes 0 say at last: "Oh. what a common lace life this is I am leading!" Com uonplace because it is familiar, and here is no longer an appreciative heart 0 see the wonder and glory of it all.
 Weary as we grow of our common . title lives, they have their value, and acts.