[Granville-Hough] Message of 2 Jan 2009 - TO DO GREAT THINGS

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:39:37 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Message of 2 Jan 2009

	TO DO GREAT THINGS

	It is not the straining for great things that is most effective: it is 
the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and 
better û the constant improving ûthat tells.  We often see young people 
who seem very ambitious to get on by leaps and bounds, and are inpatient 
of what they call the drudgery of their situation,  but who are doing 
this drudgery in a very ordinary, slipshod way. Yet it is only by doing 
the common things uncommonly well, doing them with pride and enthusiasm, 
and just as well, as neatly, as quickly, and as efficiently as possible, 
that you take the drudgery out of them.  This is what counts in the 
final issue.  How can you expect to do a great thing well when you half 
do the little things?  These are the stepping stones to the great things.
	The best way to begin to do great things is to improve the doing of the 
little things as much as possible, - to put the uncommon effort into the 
common task, to make it large by doing it in a great way.  Many a man 
has dignified a very lowly and humble calling by bringing to it a master 
spirit.  Many a great man has sat upon a cobblerÆs bench, and has forged 
at an anvil in a blacksmithÆs shop, and has split rails for his family, 
or has labored in his fatherÆs carpentry shop.  It is the man that 
dignifies the calling.  Nothing that is necessary to be done is small 
when a great soul does it.
(Reflections on the life of Rev. James Lennox Sullivan and the words of 
Orison Swett Marden.  Rev. James Lennox Sullivan was for many years a 
leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, specializing in the 
literature of Sunday Schools.  His church ancestry goes back to the Zion 
Hill Baptist Church of SullivanÆs Hollow and its offshoot, the New 
Sardis Baptist Church, all of Smith County, MS.)