Trifles to do, not Trifles to leave undone.
I. It was a great saying of the Psalmist when he said, "I am small and of no reputation, yet do I put my trust in Thee." A very great saying; for, indeed, nothing makes man yield to temptation so easily as the thought of being insignificant, and that what he does matters little. If you are so small that nothing you do makes much difference, and of no reputation, so that your actions will not be known, why not do as you please? insinuates the devil. Take your own way; no one will be the worse for so unknown and obscure a person. Satisfy your own will; God does not care, or man either, for you and yours. And so the deed is done which makes the leak; the little hole, as it were, is bored which lets the water through the dyke; the loosening has begun, and, small though it be, all will break up. It is the bad work of the small, the idle sins of the many of no reputation, that ruin the world. For, indeed, every life as a life is equally valuable. The progress of the world is marked by the level the many get to, or, in other words, by the goodness of the small and those of no reputation who nevertheless, like the Psalmist, put their trust in God. This main truth is stamped in characters so broad and large everywhere that, like the daily miracle of nature, no one heeds it.
II. Never neglect in yourself or another what comes every day. Many a great love has been overthrown by a little disagreeable habit always recurring. The dropping of water has passed into a proverb for the transcendent power of this seeming weakness. And how do little, vexatious, and mean offenders, like the flies in summer, sting all the more because they are mean. That is great to us which touches us greatly. and small things touch us most; and our being small does not prevent us from being powers.
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons,vol. ii., p. 177.
Society.
I. The measure of a man's excellence is his power of uniting with others for good; the measure of a nation's excellence is the obedience and co-operative power that are in it, freedom from abusive language; freedom from violent acts; the sense to see great men; the sense to see great laws; the sense to appreciate good work and despise talk and self-glorification. The end of the world's existence is that this iron fact of society's linked chain shall become a glorious perfection of many in one and one in many, an image of the perfect unity of God.
II. We all know that man does not live alone. How few consider the deep, the terrible meaning of this great fact. Take, for instance, Abraham and his race. How for thousands of years the Jew has been a marked man in feature, a marked man pre-eminent in patience, perseverance, intellect, in a word, in intense vitality, shown all the more as being the vitality of a fallen race, whilst all other fallen races have practically disappeared. What a grand inheritance Abraham, the faithful, the true, the temperate, the hardy man of God, passed on to his children taken as one body! Society means that good and evil are ever intermingling with unfailing energy, and that, as one or other prevails, the society lives or dies. This is as true on a large scale as on a small, true in a nation, true in a man.
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons,vol. ii., p. 171.
References: 1 Peter 2:5. E. Thring, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiv., pp. 90, 103; J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 409; W. Skinner, Ibid.,vol. xi., p. 225; A. Mursell, Ibid.,vol. xxvi., p. 89; J. Keble, Sermons from Christmas to Epiphany,p. 313; Ibid., Sermons for Saints' Days,p. 415; J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons,p. 234; Homilist,4th series, vol. i., pp. 296, 297.