p. 99 | Waiting for the Crowd

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 30, 1875

Waiting for the Crowd

“I am waiting for the crowd,” was the answer given by a little boy on his way to school, when asked why he did not go directly there instead of waiting for a number of his schoolmates who were some distance in the rear. He waited, and the consequence was he was too late for school.

“Waiting for the crowd” is not a common expression in language, but it is a frequent occurrence. And the result of waiting is oftentimes a more serious disadvantage to the waiting ones than being a few minutes too late for school.

Of all influences, the one belonging to the crowd seems to enjoy a supremacy. What the majority of persons advocate and believe is generally conceded, to be the truth. Many persons are deterred from doing their duty by waiting for a favorable opinion from the crowd. This waiting prevents a discontinuation of many vile practices and customs among civilized nations; it prevents the abolition of hideous, deforming, and degenerating fashions, which cause more mental and bodily disquietude among the members of both sexes than things and subjects of more importance.

Good resolutions are rendered worthless by waiting for a crowd of favorable circumstances to carry them out. Many hearts are troubled and brains perplexed because the comforts and good things of life do not come in crowds. A healthy and moderate quantity is not sufficient for some persons’ estimate of necessity, though it is for their digestive organs and general well-being. Public opinion is but the opinion of the crowd; and how fickle it is, yet what homage is paid to it, and how many wait for it and are injured by the waiting, both in business and social relations.

Waiting for minutes to come in crowds, instead of one at a time, leaves many at the end of life poor and ignorant, who might have been educated, in a measure, and wealthy; it prevents the cultivation of the faculties which God has given them. A man may be made wealthy or famous by the crowd; and, if he be not careful, he will, eventually, be made poor and infamous by the same power. A tale of scandal told by the crowd will be rendered credible, though it be false, to the most incredulous. Valuable truths, if not advocated by the crowd, are almost worthless.

Yet, like many other subjects, this one concerning a crowd has its bright side. Who could wish that the flowers would not bloom in crowds, that they would bloom one at a time, that each would wait until its predecessor saw fit to wither and die before it exposed its beauty to the world? The rose tree is never so beautiful as when crowded with its fragrant flowers. Crowds of blades of grass render the fields beautiful in summer, and crowds of leaves produce the cool shade so grateful to the toilworn and weary.

There is nothing in nature that suffers so much from crowding, and waiting for the crowd as human beings. Even the trees of the forest, numerous as they are, seem to have room enough to live and thrive without interfering with the movements or impeding the progress of one another.—Sel.