Goodness and Greatness

“Goodness is richer than greatness,” said Edwin Hubbel Chapin. “It lifts us nearer to God…. It is… manifested according to our abilities, within our sphere,… and every day I bless God that the great necessary work of the world is so faithfully carried on by humble men in narrow spaces and by faithful women in narrow circles,… performing works of simple goodness….” Everywhere sincere and unassuming people are performing sincere and essential service, day by day, year by year, doing their share, carrying their sorrows, caring for their own, helping others, doing much that is greatly good.

“Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows”⎯said another source⎯”of these obscure heroes,… the greater part will never be known till that hour when many that were great shall be small and the small great.”

There is greatness in service where there is sickness, often under disheartening circumstances. There is greatness in enduring disappointments, in meeting obligations; greatness in work earnestly and honestly done.

There is greatness in teaching, greatness in trying, in trusting, greatness in patient waiting.

There is greatness in understanding, in forgiving, in repenting.

There is greatness⎯a very great kind of greatness⎯is self-control, in tempering appetite, in tempering temper.

There is greatness in cleanliness of life, in keeping faith, in keeping the commandments.

“Greatness… [is] not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human lives….” And what is not good is not great, no matter how glamorous or desirable it sometimes seems. As Samuel Johnson said it: “Nothing can be truly great which is not right.”

Thank God for heroic greatness in humble lives, in humble hearts and homes, greatness in devotion, in faithfulness, in being true to trust, in the simple doing of duty⎯a kind of greatness which the Lord God will not forget.