The unconscious

The unconscious unpurposed influences

It is not what a man does or says purposely and with direct intention, which leaves the deepest mark in the world and in other lives. But it is the unconscious unpurposed influences which go out from him like the perfumes from a garden, whether he wakes or sleeps, whether he is present or absent.

God seems to blight the things which we are proud of, and to make them come to nothing. Then, when we are not intending to do anything grand, He uses us for noble purposes, and to make lasting impressions on the hearts and lives of others.

In all true living, while men execute their greater plans — they are ever unintentionally performing a series of secondary acts which often yield most beneficent and far-reaching results.

There is a wayside ministry, for instance, made up of countless little courtesies, gentle words, mere passing touches on the lives of those we meet casually, influences flowing indirectly from the things we do and the words we speak — a ministry undesigned, unplanned, unnoted, merely incidental — and yet it is impossible to measure the results of these unconscious influences.

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