Velocipede Philosophy

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1882

Velocipede Philosophy.

In a home where the Sunday School Times is often read aloud, a little girl recently heard one of its editorial references to “a child philosophy.” Mistaking one word for another, as so many hearers do, this child turned to her little brother, and said, as if in comment on the article just read: “Charlie don’t you remember that velocipede that you had?” And the little girl is not the first person to confound “philosophy” and a “velocipede.” A good many persons straddle their philosophy as they would a velocipede, with the idea that it will enable them to get on in life without using their feet and legs in steady walking; and here is where they make a great mistake. A wise philosophy may answer as a compass to show our polar bearing, but it is a poor velocipede as a means of getting over the road of duty. In fact, there is a gain in a real velocipede over a sham philosophy, if one must straddle the one or the other; the same gain that was pointed out by the lunatic, in the contrast of a horse and a hobby. “Do you know the difference between a horse and a hobby?” he asked of a surprised stranger whom he stopped on the street. “Well, I can’t say I do,” was the answer. “Why, if a man is astride of a horse he can get off; but if he is astride of a hobby he can’t.”—S. S. Times.