November 10

Influenced and influencing

“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exod. 23:2).
“Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Eph. 4:1).

In some degree, upon all, conscious or unconscious, we shall exert an influence. We cannot help it. It is not a question of whether we will or will not, but of what shall be the influence that we exert.
A flower may not know how sweet it is, but it is sweet; and the perfume is wafted from it perpetually. A candle does not know what it is doing, nevertheless its light is going out all the time, in every direction. A magnet has no volition, yet it is forever searching and drawing objects to itself. So it is with the human soul; it is put together and tempered in such a way that it is constantly radiating influences. Man is a double creature, and which is the more wonderful of the two sides we cannot tell—namely, the capacity to receive endless influences and appreciate them, or the capacity to give out endless influences, consciously and unconsciously.

The bell when struck does not ring because it chooses to, but because it cannot help itself. And when a man beholds a noble trait, he admires it not because he wills to do it, but because he is so constituted that he must do it.
—Henry Ward Beecher.

Our many deeds, the thoughts that we have thought,
They go out from us thronging every hour;
And in them all is folded up a power
That on the earth doth move them to and fro;
And mighty are the marvels they have wrought
In hearts we know not, and may never know.
—F. Faber.

The slightest breeze that ever blew,
Some slender grass has wavered;
The smallest life I ever knew,
Some other life has flavored.
We cannot live our lives alone,
For other lives we touch
Are either strengthened by our own
Or weakened just as much.
—Finch.

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