Shade Tree Wisdom 8/28/08

Charles Mackay, a friend of Charles Dickens, wrote “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of the Crowd”. This is the first popular account of such delusions as the Tulip Mania, Mississippi, and the South Sea Bubbles. He said such manias show a tendency now and then of society to succumb to mass madness.

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds, it will be seen they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” I am quoting from Edward Chancellors “Devil Take The Hindmost”, a history of the manias that have enveloped the financial world. It shows how such things develop, and people with common sense seem to lose their whole perspective when they see profits.

A recent letter from the chairman of a bank that faced large loses because they also got into the speculative mortgage business admitted that “Our core business, that is, banking, is sound and always showed a profit, but our Board got caught up in the easy profits that seemed to rise from such purchases.”

That really is the nature of man, he acts in crowds and does things he never would do alone. In one of his stories Louis La’Mour has an innocent man in jail, but a drunk in the saloon starts to speak of hanging him, and soon the crowd goes into the street and gathers at the jail demanding the man be given to them to be hanged. A deputy meets them with a shotgun, meanwhile the sheriff is on the street on the back of the crowd. He speaks to one man after another, and they, finding they are recognized, drift away till the mob is gone.

St. Paul was well aware of this phenomenon. In his letter to his young co-worker Timothy, Paul writes, “Preach the Word, be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction, for the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine, instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear”. 2 Tim 4, 3.4. And it is always easy to follow the crowd, because if ‘everybody’s doing it’, it makes something seem right.

That is the reason I always will encourage you to seek the counsel of God, Whose Word is true, and trustworthy. “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against you” Ps. 119. And v. 105, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”.

Maybe it is always "good to come by yourself alone" to seek His wisdom. May the Lord give you ready ears and an open heart to do His will, and God bless the way.

GPD 8/28/08