You may, for instance, have no opportunity of teaching on an enlarged scale, or even of taking a class at a Sunday-school, or of instructing any of your poor neighbours in reading or in the word of God.  Such labours of love may, it is possible, though not probable, be shut out of your reach:  if, however, you are on the watch for opportunities, (and we are best made quick-sighted to their occurrence in the course of the day, by the morning’s earnest prayer for their being granted to us,) you may be able to help your fellow-pilgrims Zion-ward in a variety of small ways.  “A word in season, how good is it!” the mere expression of religious sympathy has often cheered and refreshed the weary traveller on his perhaps difficult and lonely way.  A verse of Scripture, a hymn taught to a child, only the visitor of a day, has often been blessed by God to the great spiritual profit of the child so taught.  Are not even such small works of love within your reach?

Again, with respect to family duties, I know that in some cases, when there are many to fulfil such duties, it is a more necessary and often a more difficult task to refrain altogether from interfering in them.  They ought to be allowed to serve as a safety-valve for the energies of those members of the family who have no other occupations:  of these there will always be some in a large domestic circle.  Without, however, interfering actively and habitually, which it may not be your duty to do, are you always ready to help when you are asked, and to take trouble willingly upon yourself, when the excitement and the credit of the arrangement will belong exclusively to others?  This is a good sign of the humility and lovingness of your spirit:  how is the test borne?

Further, you may complain that your conversation is not valued, and that therefore you have no excitement to exertion for the amusement of others; that your cheerfulness and good temper under sorrows and annoyances are of no consequence, as you are not considered of sufficient importance for any display of feeling to attract attention.  When I hear such complaints, and they are not unfrequent from the younger members of large families, I have little doubt that the sting in all these murmurs is infixed by their pride.  They assure me, at the same time, that if there was any one to care much about it, to watch anxiously whether they were vexed or pleased, they would be able to exercise the strictest control over their feelings and temper,—­and I believe it, for here their pride and their affection would both come to the assistance of duty.  What God requires of us, however, is its fulfilment when all these things are against us.  The effort to control grief, to conceal depression, to conquer ill-temper, will be a far more acceptable offering in his eyes, when they alone are expected to witness it.  That which now his eyes alone see will one day be proclaimed upon the housetop.[11]