THE DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1928, Page 1

THE DAILY MESSAGE

LITTLENESS. The human family is divided into the “ little ” and tne “ big.” There are no others. If you’re not big, you’re little; there are no between sizes in humans. It is not a matter of sex. There are big women and little women, just as there are big and little men. Neither is it a matter of height or weight; nor of money, position, or education. It’s just a matter of soul, heart, and faith. The humble little woman in the poorest, meanest house may be entitled to rank with the big ones of the world. But the wealthiest man in the largest mansion may be only a “ little ” fellow. The cj'eed of the little fellow is Littleness. The little fellow disbelieves in everything, including himself. The world has more to fear from littleness than from anything in the make-up of man. For Littleness is the mother of Unbelief and Hatred, Envy and Suspicion, Persecution and Cruelty. Littleness is thA big destroyer of achievement. Littleness endeavours to pull down every great structure which the big fellows seek to build. Littleness laughs at every great dream. It mocks at every great emotion,; it sneers at every great endeavour; it always hates, it never forgives. Littleness always doubts, it never commends. Littleness always persecutes the big, the noble, the good. It crucified Christ; it handed the hemlock to Socrates. Littleness mocked Galileo; it derided Columbus; it jeered at Lincoln. Oh, yes! Littleness has always seen to it, and always will, that, wherever the great walk, there are thorns. The creed of Littleness demands not only tne crucifixion of the great living, but the profaning of the dead. Littleness is the posthumous destroyer of the Gladstones and Woodrow Wilsons of the world, Gladstone is dead, but Littleness is alive; and for fear the world might believe Gladstone might have l>een as “white” as his day and generation believed* him to be. Littleness denounces him, after thirty years of hallowed memory, as a gross sensualist, a whited sepulchre. Proof to the contrary can never be produced.; Gladstone is dead: and all the little fellows, men and women, rejoice. Truly Littleness is the parent ol those who love to spit on statues. But the influence of the big fellows who raised those statues, and who raise all the other great monuments in life —monuments which are greaterr than those wrought in bronze or stone—will always sweep the human race forward and upward on the tide of their ov n great faith, in spite of all the little fellows in this world. —M. PRESTON STANLEY.