There are passages in the Spirit of prophecy in which ministers are warned against the fault of overstudiousness. Such a passage, for example, is found in the "Testimonies," Volume IV, pages 269, 270. Obviously this instruction must have been needed at the time when it was given, or it would not have been given. But the faults and sins of one period are not always those of the next. In the Testimonies, for instance, we find warnings against the wearing of hoop-skirts, although very few of our sisters today are at all tempted toward this particular evil. We cannot help wondering if in this era the sin of overstudiousness is not as much out of fashion as is the sin of wearing hoopskirts. Certainly we do not see much of either fault in this year of our Lord, 1940.
Times change, and our imperfections tend to change with them. The whole tendency of our modern world is away from study, and toward superficiality. We are not in the age of D'Aubigne and Wylie, of Farrar and Alford. We are in the age of "Amos 'n Andy" and of the well-known -Katzenjammer Kids." Nonsense is more highly regarded than learning, and too often silliness seems more valuable than intelligence.
And we who are ministers, why is it easy for us, in spite of the best of intentions, to drift along with the crowd? How natural it is for us to spend our spare time, what little we have, in listening to the genial blare of the radio. And then there is the newspaper. Of course we must be well informed as to what is going on in the world, for it would never do to be ignorant ! Yet, after all, of how much importance is last week's newspaper? For those who continually feed their brains on such a diet, and on little else, the result is a dwarfing of the intellect, a shrinking of the soul. The temporary, the trivial, the unimportant, how often these fill our minds. Some years ago Elder W. C. White wrote:
"You ask regarding the reading habits of my mother. Sister White was a very industrious woman, and when not engaged to the full extent of her strength in traveling or speaking, or in writing testimonies and books, she spent a portion of her time in reading and in studying. Of course, the Bible came first ; after that, such books as D'Aubigne's 'History of the Reformation;' and later she read a little in Wylie, but not much. She also read various books on the life of Christ—Fleetwood, Farrar, Geikie, Lightfoot, and Andrews; and later she read from Hanna. She had in her library, and occasionally read from, Conybeare and Howson's 'Life and Epistles of the Apostle Paul.' She also read the best religious papers."
That is a good example for us all. I do not suppose that we can all be great scholars, but we can at least all be great students. Let us take more time, as ministers of Christ, to consider the things that are worthwhile. After all, we have but one mind. What we put into it is what we shall surely find in it.
