ay, or, in the language of men less enlightened, ploughing
the field.

As it is thus easy by a detail of minute circumstances to make every
thing little, so it is not difficult by an aggregation of effects to
make every thing great. The polisher of marble may be forming ornaments
for the palaces of virtue, and the schools of science; or providing
tables on which the actions of heroes and the discoveries of sages shall
be recorded, for the incitement and instruction of generations. The
mason is exercising one of the principal arts by which reasoning beings
are distinguished from the brute, the art to which life owes much of its
safety and all its convenience, by which we are secured from the
inclemency of the seasons, and fortified against the ravages of
hostility; and the ploughman is changing the face of nature, diffusing
plenty and happiness over kingdoms, and compelling the earth to give
food to her inhabitants.

Greatness and littleness are terms merely comparative; and we err in our
estimation of things, because we measure them by some wrong standard.
The trifler proposes to himself only to equal or excel some other
trifler, and is happy or miserable as he succeeds or miscarries: the man
of sedentary desire and unactive ambition sits comparing his power with
his wishes; and makes his inability to perform things impossible, an
excuse to himself for performing nothing. Man can only form a just
estimate of his own actions, by making his power the test of his
performance, by comparing what he does with what he can do. Whoever
steadily perseveres in the exertion of all his faculties, does what is
great with respect to himself; and what will not be despised by Him, who
has given to all created beings their different abilities: he faithfully
performs the task of life, within whatever limits his labours may be
confined, or how soon soever they may be forgotten.

We can conceive so much more than we can accomplish, that whoever tries
his own actions by his imagination, may appear despicable in his own
eyes. He that despises for its littleness any thing really useful, has
no pretensions to applaud the grandeur of his conceptions; since nothing
but narrowness of mind hinders him from seeing, that by pursuing the
same principles every thing limited will appear contemptible.

He that neglects the care of his family, while his benevolence expands
itself in scheming the happiness of imaginary kingdoms, might with equal
reason