A Three - Months’ Lay - over - Glenn Conjurske

A Three-Months’ Lay-over

by Glenn Conjurske

Travelling in the old days was another thing than it is today. There were no motor-driven machines which could move at high speeds, and travel was slow. The shallow thinking—-or absence of thinking—-of modern times assumes that all the gain is ours. This is progress, and it is seldom questioned that it is an unmixed blessing. Modern pride comes to bolster modern superficial thought, and modern man congratulates himself upon his superior wisdom, while he casts a pitying glance at his dull and backward forefathers, who evidently occupied a much lower plane in the evolutionary scale than he does himself.

But “All is not gold that glitters,” and a little reflection might teach modern man that modern progress is not so beneficial as he thinks. But who has time for “a little reflection”? It is one of the great ironies of modern times that all of the modern time-savers and conveniences have catapulted mankind into such a state of hustle and bustle and hurry that he has no time left for quiet thought or meditation. This is just as the devil would have it, and this fact alone ought to give men a broad hint that this modern progress is not all gold, and that it is not of God. That there is some good in it we would not pretend to deny, but we do deny that it is all gain. Every blessing of modern technology comes to us with a curse on its back, and long observation and meditation have taught us that the curse is generally much greater than the blessing.

Rapid travel may be harmless in itself, but as with all the advancements of modern progress, man in his present state lacks the character to control it and put it to a proper use. The angels have powers of rapid travel, far beyond the most advanced machines of puny man, and those powers do them no harm. But God never gave to man those powers which he gave to angels. Man has acquired what powers he has in that direction by his own restless seeking, and man is not wiser than God. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Eccl. 7:29), and most of those inventions have proved greater curses than blessings. Men who have the character of angels may use them aright. Men who have the faith and patience and love and wisdom and devotedness of the angels may not be hurt by all these inventions, but for the rest of the race they are a small blessing with a great curse on its back.

Man now has great powers of rapid travel, but he cannot control them. He lacks the character for it. He lacks the patience and the self-denial requisite to use those powers aright. Since the powers exist, they must be used. The possession of an automobile is no blessing to most of those who have one. Since man may “run to and fro” upon the earth, he therefore must. He has no wisdom to use those powers to proper ends, no care for the will of God in the matter, and no inclination to deny himself. Those powers therefore control him, and have catapulted the whole world into a hurried life (commonly called “the rat-race”) which God never intended, from which man cannot escape, and which is highly detrimental to his soul. A certain type of automobile used to be called a runabout, and most of those who possess one become runabouts also, instead of keepers at home. Most of the young people (including Christians) who have access to an automobile are much the worse for it spiritually. They cannot sit still, but must be running to and fro, simply because they have the power to do so. I lately saw a young lady’s personalized license plate which read, “MUST GO.” No doubt, but quiet and meditation are altogether lost in the hurry. The angel Gabriel has the same powers of rapid travel which belong to all the angels, and yet he is not out to see the sights every day, nor to buy a hamburger, nor to see his friends, but says of himself, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.” (Luke 1:19). His usual activity is to stand. He goes when he is sent. But Christians go because they can.

Christians commonly justify (yea, glorify) all of this modern progress by the increased capabilities which it gives to us for the work of the Lord, but this is extremely shallow thinking. Where are now the servants of the Lord who can equal the apostles in their work for Christ? Yet the apostles accomplished all their exploits without one shred of modern technology. They had neither airplane nor automobile, neither steamship nor railroad, neither computer, nor printing press, nor fountain pen, nor factory-made paper. Yet their triumphs put the whole modern church to shame. They had something else, which the modern church does not have—-and we suggest that one of the primary reasons why the modern church does not have it is the existence of modern technology.

I have often thought, when travelling through a storm in my enclosed, self-propelled vehicle, equipped with windshield wipers, defroster, and a good heater—-I have often thought of old John Wesley, making his slow and painful way through the storm on the back of a horse.

“For this his cheerful feet pursued their way,
Through winter’s nights, and summer’s sultry day;
Through woods and floods he pass’d, and o’er the boist’rous main,
Nor e’er was known to shrink, or of his toil complain.

“While o’er the mountain-tops he often went,
He met the rapid storms with sweet content;
Then swiftly moved along the dark and doubtful track,
And chid his coward steed, who fain would turn his back.”

Now it may be that such toils and fatigues wrought a hardy manliness and a moral greatness in the likes of John Wesley, of which modern man is simply incapable. What do we know of enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, when there is no hardness to endure? Yet hardship makes character. “Tribulation worketh patience.” The poverty and toils and fatigues of the old days made men. The conveniences and luxuries of modern times have made us soft and lazy. And who, with all the time-savers of modern days, who with all the near-miracles of modern technology, who in this day can equal the labors and triumphs in the gospel of John Wesley and George Whitefield and Francis Asbury? What modern missionary, with his automobiles and airplanes and radios and computers, has ever equalled the achievements of Robert Moffatt or John Williams? I repeat, those who glorify modern technology for increasing our capabilities for the work of the gospel are guilty of extremely shallow thinking. Those modern inventions may increase our outward capabilities, but at the same time they enervate and debilitate the inner man, and the net result is written everywhere in history.

But my readers may begin to wonder what all of this has to do with the title of the article. Just this, that I aim to contrast the present century with the rest of the history of the world. The conveniences and time-savers and means of rapid travel which have come into being in recent times have created a hurried life to which the human race was a stranger during most of its history. Men will now fret and fume if they must endure a three-hour layover at an airport—-or a three-minute stop at a red light—-whereas the apostle Paul must submit to a layover of three months in his journey to Rome.

“And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west.” (Acts 27:12).

“And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux.” (Acts 28:11).

Paul, it is true, was shipwrecked between these two texts, but this is beside the point. It was their intention to winter at Phenice, and the ship which they took from the island of Melita had intentionally wintered in the island. What traveller today would intentionally lay over for three months, for any cause whatsoever? These scriptures show us at any rate the very great difference between the times of the apostles and the present day.

It remains a question, of course, which state of things is better. Let us face that question squarely. No one can dispute the fact that God placed men in the earth without any of those rapid means of travel and communication which characterize the present day. Neither can they dispute the fact that during almost all the history of the human race those modern means did not exist. And few, I suppose, will dispute the fact that the present century, which has seen the invention or the prevalence of most of those inventions, has served to ripen the whole world for the impending judgement of God. Yet by some blind infatuation they fail to see any connection between these facts.

But we need not speak of the whole world, but only of our own individual souls. The hurried life which now characterizes the world is apparently the inevitable result of these modern inventions. Because we can contact a distant friend in a few seconds, we must, and who would dream of walking or riding a horse a hundred miles to see a friend? And yet has not the very essence of friendship been largely destroyed by the ease of personal intercourse? How I long for unhurried fellowship, and yet it is almost extinct on this earth. All of us are in a hurry. Most of us live by the clock. Many are in bondage to a sacred schedule, so that we cannot visit them without feeling like an intruder. Deep and intimate friendship is practically non-existent today. The hurried life of modern times will not allow it.

It is a fact that we value and appreciate things according to the difficulty with which we obtain them. “Easy come, easy go,” says an old proverb, and this is true precisely because we set little value upon anything which comes to us easily. We are therefore little concerned to hold it fast. This is true whether the thing itself is gold or tinsel. Who today can value a loaf of bread as the man who plowed and planted his own ground with a horse or ox, raised his own wheat, cut and bound it in sheaves by hand, threshed and winnowed it also by hand, ground it by hand, kneaded it into bread by his own hand, and baked it in his own oven, heated by wood cut without a power saw? What I have just described is nothing unusual, but was the normal process by which the whole human race ate bread during almost the whole duration of its history. Moreover, it was God who said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” God never intended the hurried life of modern times, nor the easy life either. “Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” So the human race lived for centuries, and this was evidently according to God’s intention, but in the present impatient age we can scarcely wait until tomorrow for anything. We must hop in the car and run to the store, as soon as the desire for anything enters our minds. We hold that the capabilities which modern technology has put into men’s hands have created this hurried and impatient and selfish society. Man has no inclination, and therefore no ability, to control or curtail those capabilities, and modern technology has therefore removed man very much farther from God than he ever was or could have been before.

Evangelicals are quick to point to “that which was from the beginning” as the standard for marriage, thus excluding polygamy. We quite agree. That which was from the beginning is what God ordained upon the earth, and every departure from it is so far a departure from the ordinance of God. But it is a little strange to see those who will appeal to this standard in one sphere totally ignore it in others.

Not that we would make a rigid rule of “that which was from the beginning.” Not so at all. We only appeal to it as an expression of the wisdom of God. We believe there is no sin in our driving an automobile, and apparently there was none in David’s taking of twenty or thirty wives. We only contend that the well-being of man is secured by the wisdom of God in that which he ordained from the beginning. It may have been no sin for the patriarchs to marry several wives, but their welfare would have been better secured if they had married but one.

Now it seems plain enough to me that the well-being of man has not been secured by the modern hurried life, and therefore not by those modern means which have produced that life. The God who created raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and cherries, and created no machinery with which to pick them—-the God who created pecans and almonds and walnuts, and created no machines with which to crack them—-the God who created small grains of wheat and rye and barley, and never a machine with which to reap or thresh them—-that God can hardly have intended that man should live a hurried life. Unless we are to believe that God created all these things for birds and mice and squirrels, we are surely required to believe that he intended that man should live by labor, and acquire all these good things by a slow and painstaking and time-consuming process. ‘Tis true that with machines to do everything for us, we may have more—-and evidently much more than God intended we should have—-but what have we profited if in the gaining of the goods we have lost the capacity to appreciate them?

To return to where we started, “from the beginning” travel was slow. Everything was slow. God made it so. God made man weak and limited and dependent, and surely intended that he should be so. It is good for man to be so, and anything but good for him to be otherwise. When man began to gain strength and capacity by his united endeavors at the tower of Babel, so that nothing would be restrained from him which he desired to do, God frowned upon the whole business. This was not according to his mind. Much less are the almost unlimited powers and capabilities of modern times. These are a great moral curse, and can be nothing else while man is what he is. It is now easy to traverse the globe, easy to do everything, easy to acquire everything, and no man—-no more the godly man than the ungodly—-seems to have the moral restraint necessary to control those powers. Because we may, we must, and the whole world, and the whole church too, has been thrust into a veritable “rat race” of going everywhere, doing everything, and acquiring everything. The world has no time for the gospel. The church has no time for solitude and thought and meditation and prayer.

What sermons were born, what prayers were uttered, what deep and solemn questions of doctrine and practice were wrestled with on the back of the horse of the old Methodist itinerant, as he pressed his slow and solitary way through the wilderness. We may go farther today, and get there faster, but we are not worth half so much when we get there.

Glenn Conjurske