A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world: Vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast. Despise not thou a small thing, either for evil or for good; For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth: The walking this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening, Hath saved life, and destroyed it, hath cast down and built up fortunes. Commit thy trifles unto God, for to Him is nothing trivial; And it is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle. All things are infinite in parts, and the moral is as the material, Neither is anything vast, but it is compacted of atoms. Thou art wise, and shalt find comfort, if thou study thy pleasure in trifles, For slender joys, often repeated, fall as sunshine on the heart: Thou art wise, if thou beat off petty troubles, nor suffer their stinging to fret thee; Thrust not thine hand among the thorns, but with a leathern glove. Regard nothing lightly which the wisdom of Providence hath ordered; And therefore, consider all things that happen unto thee or unto others. The warrior that stood against a host, may be pierced unto death by a needle; And the saint that feareth not the fire, may perish the victim of a thought: A mote in the gunner's eye is as bad as a spike in the gun; And the cable of a furlong is lost through an ill-wrought inch. The streams of small pleasures fill the lake of happiness: And the deepest wretchedness of life is continuance of petty pains. A fool observeth nothing, and seemeth wise unto himself; A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool: He that wondereth at nothing hath no capabilities of bliss: But he that scrutinizeth trifles hath a store of pleasure to his hand. If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God's doing; Is it not also His doing when an aphis creepeth on a rosebud? If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of Providence: Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar?-- A thing is great or little only to a mortal's thinking, But abstracted from the body, all things are alike important: The Ancient of Days noteth in His book the idle converse of a creature, And happy and wise is the man to whose thought existeth not a trifle. [Illustration] OF RECREATION.