A young man may be going a commonplace, treadmill sort of grind, in a small corner of some great manufacturing concern, and be at the same time carrying on a bigger enterprise than the president of his concern.  For he may be planning and praying for a world, and actually lifting it up in the arms of his strong purpose toward the level of God.

The shipping clerk may be hammering in barrel-heads all day long, but each blow may help emphasize the prayer of his heart for China, or India, or his Sunday-school class.

“Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and what? no more?  The empty song repeats itself.  Yea, that is life.  Make this forenoon sublime, this afternoon a psalm, This night a prayer, and time is conquered, and thy crown is won.”

The Master’s gracious plan is that we shall have the refreshment of doing big things.  We are made for big things.  They help us grow into the big size that belongs to us.  World-winning is a great boon to the crowd compelled by the habit of life to tread a narrow path.

Giving God Free Use of Ourselves.

Now the great question every earnest man asks himself is, How can I be of most use to God and my fellows?  I want to suggest three things that have helped me in answering that question.  It may be that they will help you, too, in getting your answer to it.

First of all is this:  that we let God have the free use of us.  Whatever I am, whatever gifts and opportunities I have—­these I will turn over to God, that He may have the fullest and freest use of them.  God asks from each of us a consecrated personality.  And “consecrated” simply means that I give God the use of myself, and that He makes use of what I have given to Him.  That’s the double meaning of the word in the Bible.

My personality, that is, what I am in myself, is the chief thing I have in life.  It is through this personality, which men recognize as I, that the Spirit of God works in His reaching out for others.  My personality is the make-up of all that I am.  My presence is that subtle something that combines all that I am.  It clings to me wherever I go.  Men know it by my name.  Out through it goes the power of the man within.

The body, the glance of the eye, the quality and intonation of the voice, the way the body is carried, and the something more than these that unites them into one—­these go to make up the presence, the outer shell of the personality.  All the power within makes itself felt through this.  A man’s mere presence is an immeasurable influence.

There is a subtle, intangible, but very real spirit influence breathing out of every man’s presence.  It is proportioned entirely to the strength of the man living within.  With some it is very attractive.  Sometimes it is positively repulsive.  It is the expression of the man within.  The presence becomes the mould of the spirit within, large or small, noble or mean, coarse or fine, as he makes it.  The strength of a man’s will or its weakness; the purity of his heart or its lack of purity; the ideals of his life, high or low; the keenness or slowness of his thinking—­all these express themselves in his presence.