oset or convent, but in the touch
of hand and in the sight of the face of friend and fellow being.

Many of us are worried at times because our lives seem wasted in doing
little things; we would become immortal by saving our powers for some
great deed. We need to remember Him whom the world most easily
remembers and most highly honours, the Man of Nazareth, whose life was
spent in trivial services, doing the next thing that came to hand,
helping ordinary people in every-day needs. Yet God was with Him, as
He ever is with those who love their fellows in sincere service.

THE HEAVENLY SERVICE

It seems easy to see something peculiarly holy, something deeply
religious in the occupations and acts of the priesthood or the
ministry. But thinking of these as religious and of such service as
divine we fall into the habit of thinking that they alone, in all the
world of action, are divine. We set on one side of life the religious
service limited to these formal acts and on the other side what we call
the secular life and service.

We have sacred days, sacred deeds, sacred callings, religious services;
all separate from the rest of life, belonging in a department, a
pigeon-hole, by themselves. Whatever is not of these is of the world,
worldly, secular, lacking in the peculiar aroma of sanctity that
attaches to the church or the profession of religion.

There are many who desire to do some religious work; who fain would
engage in divine service. There is in almost every breast a desire to
do something high and holy, something that is not necessary,
utilitarian, with some other motive than bread-winning. But there
seems to be no opportunity; such deeds are supposed to belong to
special callings; one must be ordained to do divine service.

The truth is, divine service is the duty and high privilege of every
human being; we all are divinely called to the ministry; the service of
God and humanity belongs to us all. We must not wait for ordaining
hands nor ecclesiastical robes nor for the environment of official
sanctity. Every impulse to do good, to show human love, and do loving
service is a commission from high heaven.

The good Master invites men and women to His kind of service, the
highest and holiest known to all the ages. He never was separated to a
clerical calling; He did not wait for an ordaining council nor did He
confine His divine service to prayer and praise or to the activities of
the church ritual