Crowds can be very dangerous. I am not speaking of riots, or accidents of stampeding crowds, but of common ordinary crowds, moving lazily or briskly along the sidewalks, occupied with business, shopping, or pleasure. The very existence of a crowd has a tendency to dull the sense of our dependence upon God. It is somewhat like the little girl in an old story
I once ran across a typed statement under the glass top of the desk of a student, which bore the title "Marks of an Educated Man." I copied them in order to dissent from them... Obviously there are some points in the list that are good, but that the list summarizes an educated man is questionable. There probably are many men who could be described by these eight phrases who are, nevertheless, not educated.
It is a terrible thing not to live up to one's capacities. When we face the fact of that sentence, we admit immediately that not one of us does live up to his or her capacities. We bury our talents in the field, we hide our light under the bushel basket.
I have a story that I have told for some years about an empty bottle. Now I have a new twist for it. A man bought a bottle of perfume in Paris at a very good price and brought it home under his customs deduction. It was very expensive perfume in a very beautiful bottle. His wife was proud of it, and used the perfume until it was all gone. Even then she kept the bottle on her boudoir table so that her friends, in coming into her room, would say, "Oh, that was such-and-such perfume."
There is a difference between prayer and meditation. In prayer we are talking to the Lord; in meditation we are thinking about Him. A story is often told of the famed Dr. Thomas Chalmers of Edinburgh. The great preacher was walking down Princess Street with his head bowed deep in thought when a friend, watching him, finally walked beside him and touched his sleeve. Chalmers looked up, still deep in thought, and said, "That's a glorious verse - `My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.' He had been deep in meditation.
