LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

food and clothing and shelter, therewith be content and you will be
happy.
(b) Purpose.
Much of the discontent and consequent misery in life, is caused by lack
of a definite plan, the absence of a well-defined and fixed purpose. The
listless, careless, slothful, can never be happy. He who has no heart in
his task, will hasten to finish it, or leave it but partly done, and return to
it only under protest.
Hard work was never intended as a burden, much less a curse. Before
sin came, the newly created was directed by the Creator to service in
connection with the care and culture of the garden. No greater curse
could come to man than that which would relieve him of all effort, and
permit him to be merely the recipient of life's blessings, without a
corresponding service and self-denial.
The convicts in the prisons of the State would consider their penalty
unendurable, if left without employment.
Among the little things that make for contentment and happiness let
this be noted, that time and talent must be busy with a task up to the
full measure of opportunity and ability--or else life becomes a burden.
A quaint writer says: "What is happiness? It isn't being idle; no idle man
or woman ever was happy since the world began. Employment gives
both appetite and digestion. Duty makes pleasure doubly sweet, by
contrast. When pleasure is the business of life, it ceases to be pleasure!"
Respecting that purpose, the employment of time and strength, see to it
that it combines three especial elements:
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