Common Duties. September 5
The only way to regenerate the world is to do the duty which lies nearest us, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones for ourselves. If each drop of rain chose where it should fall, God’s showers would not fall as they do now, on the evil and the good alike. I know from the experience of my own heart how galling this doctrine is—how, like Naaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid us do some great thing, but only to go wash in the nearest brook and be clean.
Letters and Memories. 1854.