LINGO by L. N. Stratton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 29, 1869

"LINGO."

By L. N. Stratton

It is the set speech of the peddler, who enters the house with a pack on his back; the auctioneer's harangue, which many repetitions aid him to perfect and memorize; the set phrases of the foreign beggar, who only aspires to a beggar's reward; and the remarks of the fixed, immovable, unaspiring, "established," pulseless Christian, whose daily path is mapped out on the inclined plane of a tread-mill, and who has long since ceased to make any progress in his religious experience.

To the unsophisticated, the lingos of the peddler, the auctioneer, the beggar, and the formal worshiper, may sound well enough; but they are no pleasure to men of wholesome experience, and must annoy the chaste ears of the angels.

We are cautioned against using unmeaning words in our prayers by that great Teacher who said, "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking." We have an example of it in 1 King xviii, 26. "They called unto Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us!" The Hindoo has a prayer written on a band or strap which passes around a windlass, and a pulley above. In turning the windlass, the prayer ascends like wheat in the elevators of a flouring mill, and in a little while, a long prayer is many times repeated.

Now these prayers which run with the monotony of a crank, and are always mechanical, and the same, whether offered by pagan or Christian—whether offered three hundred and sixty-five times in a year, or in many times in a day—are in either case an abomination unto God. Besides, in our prayer-meetings, they annoy all who are present, by their great length. Like the ancient tower-builders, they suppose they can scale the walls of Heaven, if they can only make the ladder of prayer of sufficient length. So at commencing, they square themselves, and lay their foundation broad and deep, consuming much time, and then begin to pray, growing higher and higher until the top round is reached, when they descend as they went up. Jesus taught his disciples a very brief and explicit prayer; and taught by his divine word, every disciple since, that what things soever they desire, when they pray, believe, and they should have them. Thus, asking God for what we want is one thing, and a long and loitering prayer is quite another.

The use of some old lingo in speaking meetings is the bane of the social exercise. No one is interested. The lack of recent, rich experience is the cause, and the presence of such experience the cure.

Several youths of our acquaintance started in the heavenly journey, at ages of from ten to twelve years. They did well for a year or two, when they adopted the lingo method in their praying and speaking, and when they came to manhood it was still the same; and it was as common for the masses of all classes to doubt the genuineness of their piety, as to believe it. They would often include in their talk this compound of sentiment: "I am glad that I started in the divine life in my youthful days. The only thing I have to regret is, that I did not start younger. I hope to prove faithful, and at last meet you in Heaven, where parting shall be no more." The first sentence contains a historical truth—that they started in their "youthful days." That they were "glad," seemed always doubtful. The second sentence was either a falsehood, or showed their hearts to be as stolid as a stone, or both. They did have other things to regret than starting later in life than they ought. A dark and fearful record of negligence covered the pages of most of the days of their history; and the terrible misfortune of the whole matter was, they were so dead they did not know the facts, and would not know them! If their hope of "proving faithful" in their course is realized, ruin must be their certain doom.

It is not strange that people who can only speak of the "peaceful hours they once enjoyed," have nothing else sweet to talk about. Their Christian experience ends very near where it began.

If we were to start upon a sight-seeing expedition, for the purpose of learning and telling of Nature in her sublimest forms; and the wide continent from ocean to ocean, spread out with God's handiwork, awaited our coming, and we should but cross a single county, and stop there with the joy we experienced; how little we could contemplate, and of how little speak with which to interest and encourage our friends! The Hudson, the Niagara, the St. Lawrence, the Potomac, the Mississippi, the great lakes, the great oceans, the blue ranges and peaks of the Alleganies, and the granite, snow-crowned ridges which stretch from pole to pole, away toward the blue Pacific,—these, all these we could not contemplate, nor tell their animating stories to our friends. So those who have only gone to the county line in Christian experience, can give but the story of a few bright days in the heavenly journey. The wide expanse seen in the Christian pilgrimage—the graded ascents—the tower of shelter in the storm—the God-spanned gulf for the feet of the faithful—the fruits, richer than Eschol's grapes—the singing birds, and rippling streams, and blooming flowers, and sweet sunshine—all telling of God amid those fastnesses where the world's clangor never broke the peaceful solitude; and then the flight of faith to yonder delectable summits, where the beatific visions of the glory-world break on the pilgrim's view,—none of these things are known or can be told by that poor, self-made, spiritual cripple, who contents himself with a long journey on a tread-mill.

"I never get on Pisgah's summit, nor into the valley; I am established—my life is one even thing," said a brother, with an air of reproof, to some who have got out of their old neighborhood in Christian experience. Well, dear brother, we thought, Moses went to Pisgah's summit, and from there stepped right into heaven's open doorway. Nothing bad about that! Try it!

It is said that he went one day into the woods for fuel, and his horse balked. After trying every expedient, from persuasion to punishment, he excitedly exclaimed, "Well, I would like to know why he can't pull?" His little son, demurely watching, suggested, "Father, I guess he's established!"

Alas! the world is blighted with these "established," balky, unpulling, pulseless, petrified persons, who neither work themselves nor encourage others. Their words are lingo; their heavenward journey is ended; they have no more experience, because they look at nothing only the joys of early life. The glaring, lidless eye-balls of the Sphinx of Egypt—whose face, for more than thirty-five centuries, has been turned from the pyramids to the barren and monotonous desert of Sahara—is a melancholy, and yet not an entirely unfaithful, representation of these unfortunate and self-destroyed persons.

May Heaven speed the day when the world shall be blessed with men and women who have a clear, deep, rich, full, versatile, growing, changing experience—

Changed from glory into glory, Till in Heaven we take our place— Till we cast our crowns before Him, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

—L. N. Stratton, in Earnest Christian.