MARKING TIME | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 10, 1881

MARKING TIME.

Two sailors happened to be on a military parade ground while the soldiers were on drill, going through the evolution of marking time. One observed the other watching the movements of the company very attentively, with eyes fixed and arms akimbo, and asked him what he thought of it. "Well, Jack," replied his comrade, "I am thinking there must be a pretty strong tide running this morning, for these poor fellows have been pulling away for this half an hour, and have not got an inch ahead yet." We fear that in many of our Churches and Sabbath-schools this is a kind of movement that is very common. There is activity, regular and orderly, a "going through the motions" according to the latest edition of the manual, but no real progress, nor any real thought of it. Each service is only a "performance," and the leading idea is to have it artistically "rendered." The proprieties may be preserved, but there is no lofty conception of an ultimate end, no glimpse of a serious goal, no steadfast pressing forward to it with utmost strain of faculty ; there is only a martinet issuing orders, and a company marking time."—Baptist Teacher.