i Herbert Photos, Inc.
George Bernard Shaw, the noted English writer, lost in
thought. But he doesn’t *‘think God's thoughts after Him"
other expression of life. Business is done on a large
scale. It is big volume in a short time that the com-
mercialist itches for. Each year new inventions,
more up-to-date equipment, are added to turn
things out faster.
No T1ME To THINK
HIS speed mania has affected our thinking.
We do not take time to think. As Charles E.
Jefferson says: “Our superficiality is the result of
the haste in which we live. We have so many inter-
esting things to look at that we cannot look at one
thing long, not long enough to get under the skin of it.
We have so many things to think about, we can-
not think about anything more than a minute. We
have no time to think a problem through. We have
so many places to go that we are always on the rush.
We flit from place to place and dabble in this and that
and get a smattering of a hundred different kinds of
knowledge, but come to know nothing well.”—
“Cardinal Ideas of Jeremiah,” page 138.
With this speed of life has come the pressure of the
cares of life. Our social and economic conditions
have become very complex. Men seem to have
more to do now than ever before. People used to
have time for family worship, for a chat with the
home folks, and to visit the neighbors. Today we
are always busy — tremendously busy. We have no
time to think, no time to stop for anything.
When a funeral procession passed by in the days of
horse-drawn hearses, lumber wagons, surreys, and
buggies, a carriage driving in the opposite direction
came to a halt and the occupants waited in respect
for the mourning procession to pass by. Today they
rush by, in front and across the line. Everybody
1s too busy to stop.
There is today a great exodus of the world’s
population from the farm to the city. Many farms
JULY, 1929
"® are lying vacant, and one farmer is
working two or three, while the cities
are growing rapidly. This has resulted
in bringing the people close together
in association.
Coupled with this are the many
modern ways of travel that make it
possible for men to “run to and fro,” as
Daniel in vision saw would be charac-
teristic of the ‘time of the end.” The
people in the rural districts are next-
door neighbors to the city by the use
of the automobile.
The result is mass movement. The
small country churches are being
abandoned for the large city church.
It is mass religious meetings, mass
political meetings, and mass social
gatherings.
It is affecting our thinking. The
individuality is being exchanged for
the mass movement. A few men are
doing the thinking and the great bulk
of people are following a few leaders.
There are volumes of religious books by great
men, and many of them are good; but while they are
being perused the Bible is allowed to become dusty
and shelf worn. Even many preachers give discourses
from printed sermons that have been bought, rather
than study the Bible and think through for them-
selves the mysteries of redemption as revealed
through the Holy Scriptures. Good books are to be
read, and we can profit by the fruit of other minds,
but the tendency is to substitute this for real
thinking on the part of the individual.
Mass RELIGION
/ | ‘HE religious world is moving in a mass. There
is talk of combining great organizations. Denom-
inations are losing their distinctive teachings and
amalgamating. Unity is to be desired, but not at the
price of truth. It is better to be in a small crowd
and be right than in a large crowd and be wrong.
The Bible tells us that the mass are going to destruc-
tion; it is the few who think and study for them-
selves who shall reap eternal life. ‘“‘Enter ye in at
the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is
the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate,
and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and
few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:13, 14. The
Lord said to Israel: “The Lord did not set His love
upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in
number than any people; for ye were the fewest of
all people.” Deuteronomy 7:7. It is better for an
individual to feel as did Elijah when he said, “I
only am left, and they seek my life,” and have the
satisfaction of knowing that he is on the Lord's
side, than for him to move in the way of the millions
and to travel the way of sin, which leads to eternal
damnation. (Continued on page 34)
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