LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

companionship--for the very things men seek to avoid--dependence,
and service for others. For with this interlocking of interest comes
social life and its blessed, reciprocal relations.
Cooperation is the law of the largest liberty in human life.
The law of the Lord is, "Subdue and have dominion." This wide world
must be made habitable. Its wildness must be conquered, or else man
himself will be overcome by the encroachment of nature, animal and
vegetable, around him. He, then, is a benefactor of the race who, by skill
and diligence, makes two blades of grass or grain grow where one grew
before; who brings one more square foot or one acre more of wildness
into a state of culture; who digs a well, builds a fence, a machine, a city,
a nation, though he may not live forever to enjoy all the fruits of his
labor. Each individual effort at wealth accumulation, is a contribution
to the sum-total of the world's wealth. Each wasteful life, each day lost,
is so much of a burden on the energies of others.
"You have lost an hour!" said the manager to a tardy engineer for whom
he was waiting.
"O no, sir. I'm only five minutes late."
"Yes, but there are twelve of us. By your delay, each of us had to wait five
minutes. That loss is all because of you."
If the present civilization, the present wealth of the world, could be
summed up, and over against it could be placed the hours of idleness,
destructive wickedness, the avoidable losses, the unnecessary wars, the
willful obstructions--it might easily be seen that twice as much has
been earned as has been saved. If added to this, we place floods, fires,
storms, decay, delays by death, misdirected energies--then we shall
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