"Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life."- Young.

"All service is the same with God

With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.

There is no great, there is no small

To the soul that maketh all."-Browning.

HEN tempted to scorn the little duties of our calling, let us think of such sayings as the following. One day a visitor at Michael Angelo's studio remarked to that great

artist, who had been describing certain little finishing "touches" lately given to a statue-"But these are only trifles." "It may be so," replied the sculptor; "but recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no

trifle." In the same spirit the great painter Poussin accounted for his reputation in these words-" Because I have neglected nothing." It is related of a Manchester manufacturer, that, on retiring from business, he purchased an estate from a certain nobleman. The arrangement was that he should have the house with all its furniture just as it stood. On taking possession, however, he found that a cabinet which was in the inventory had been removed; and on applying to the former owner about it, the latter said: "Well, I certainly did order it to be removed; but I hardly thought you would have cared for so trifling a matter in so large a purchase." "My lord," was the reply, "if I had not all my life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to purchase this estate; and excuse me for saying so, perhaps if your lordship had cared more about trifles, you might not have had occasion to sell it." "Oh, what's the good of doing this and that?" we say in reference to departments of our business where quick returns are not forthcoming, or where success does not at once stare us in the face. When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, people of this baser sort asked with a sneer, "Of what use is it?" The philosopher's retort was: "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" Apropos of this remark, grown-up people should remember, while doing improper things in the presence of him who is "only a child," that he will one day become a man just like themselves.

Mr. Careless Nevermind and Miss Notparticular think that great men only deal with great things. The most bril

liant discoverers were of a different opinion. They made their discoveries by observing and interpreting simple facts. When fools were walking in darkness, the eyes of these wise men were in their heads. Galileo's discovery of the pendulum was suggested to his observant eye by a lamp swinging from the ceiling of Pisa Cathedral. A spider's net suspended across the path of Sir Samuel Brown, as he walked one dewy morning in his garden, was the prompter that gave to him the idea of his suspension bridge across the Tweed. So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. Galvani observed that a frog's leg twitched when placed in contact with different metals, and it was this apparently insignificant fact that led to the invention of the electric telegraph. While a bad observer may "go through a forest and see no firewood," a true seer learns from the smallest things and apparently the most insignificant people. Certainly the power of little things can never be denied by Englishmen who reflect that the chalk cliffs of their island have been built up by little animals-detected only by the help of the microscope—of the same order of creatures that have formed the coral reefs.

Perhaps it is not too much to say that England owes her reputation of being the best workshop in Europe not so much to the fact that she is rich in coal and iron, as because her workmen put, or used to put, a good finish on their work. A country must become and continue great when its

labourers work honestly, paying attention to detail, putting conscience into every stone they place and into every nail they drive. There is no fear of England declining so long as it can be said of her workers what was said of the Old Masters in statuary, painting, and cathedral-building :

"In the elder days of art,

Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part,

For the Gods see everywhere."

How much of this honest workmanship, that careth for little things and not merely for the large and showy, is to be seen on the roof of Milan Cathedral! Here the smallest and least visible statue of the statue forest that tops the building is carved with quite as great care as the largest and most conspicuous.

It has been remarked that we cannot change even a particle of sand on the sea-shore to a different place without changing at the same time the balance of the globe. The earth's centre of gravity will be altered by the action, in an infinitely small degree no doubt, but still altered; and upon this will ensue climatic changes which may influence people's temperaments and actions. Of course this is an absurd refinement; but it illustrates the undoubted fact that the most trivial thought and act carries with it a train of consequences the end of which we may never guess. The veriest trifles become of importance in influencing our own. or other people's lives and characters. One look may

marry us. Our profession may be settled for us by the most trivial circumstance. "A kiss from my mother," said West,

"made me a painter." Going into an inn for refreshment, Dr. Guthrie saw a picture of John Pounds the cobbler of Portsmouth teaching poor ragged children that had been left by ministers, ladies, and gentlemen to go to ruin on the streets. The sight of this picture hanging over the chimney-piece on that day made Dr. Guthrie the founder of ragged schools.

On a clock in one of the Oxford colleges is inscribed this solemn warning to those who fancy that killing time is not murder: Periunt et imputantur ("the hours perish and are laid to our charge"). But is not this equally true of those "odd moments during which we say it is not worth while commencing or finishing anything? Dr. Smiles tells us that Dr. Mason Good translated Lucretius while driving from patient's house to patient's house; that Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way; that Hale wrote his "Contemplations" while travelling on circuit; that Elihu Burritt, while earning his living as a blacksmith, mastered eighteen ancient languages and twenty-two European dialects in "odd moments;" that Madame de Genlis composed several of her volumes while waiting for the princess to whom she gave daily lessons. Kirke White learned Greek and J. S. Mill composed "Logic" as they walked to their offices. Many of us get into a fuss if dinner be not to the moment. Not so did D'Aguesseau, one of the greatest Chancellors of France, act. He used this mauvais quart d'heure, for he is said to have written a large and able volume in the intervals of waiting for dinner. Wellington's achievements were mainly owing to the fact that he personally attended to such minutiæ as soldiers'