SANDING THE AXLES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 13, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 20

SANDING THE AXLES.

A PERSON who is able to help but little is sometimes able to hinder a good deal. It requires but very little talent to stand in the way of one another’s usefulness. It would require but small ability for a roguish boy, standing by a machine, to sprinkle a little sand upon the oiled and polished axles on which the wheels revolved. It might be done easily and quickly, and remain unobserved; but that sand, mingling with the lubricating oil, and being carried around on the axles, would decrease the speed, consume the power, cut the axles, injure the box, hinder the work, and derange and ruin the machine. If the boy was trying to introduce pebbles or rocks into the machine, he would do less damage, for they would be observed and could be removed; but the mischief would come from introducing the sand, so fine that it makes its way everywhere, so small that no one would notice it.

There are men in the church of Christ who never have shown great ability to plan or execute anything of importance. Their main forte seems to be sanding axles. They can get in the way of others; they can hinder, find fault, pervert, and sow jealousy, dissension and suspicion, as invisibly and as effectually as a boy can sand the journals of a machine. No one suspects what they are doing; nor can any one fasten their misdeeds upon them; but the air grows thick with distrust, and work is hindered by secret contrivances and combinations; good men are burdened, disheartened, and worn out; noble enterprises falter, fall, and are abandoned. Every one notices that things go hard, and that something hinders their progress; but no one seems to know what the trouble is, until the day comes for a general clearing up, and then, lo and behold, the axles are found covered with sand.

It requires very little ability in a man to fill the position of sand-thrower. Neither intelligence, talent, grace, nor godliness are absolutely necessary for this work. Conceit, envy, jealousy, sourness, and meddlesomeness are sufficient qualifications, under ordinary circumstances. It does not take much religion for a man to find fault; some men have been known to find fault who did not have any. It requires no skill or long apprenticeship to throw sand on axles; a man who does not know enough to oil a machine properly, could sand it effectually.

Here, for instance, is a church, where there are a few people who try to do something, and a number who succeed in doing nothing except grumble because what is done is not done in a different way. Here is a person who, from love to the cause of God, desires to labor earnestly, energetically, and effectually in the Master’s work; but by the time he is under way, others, who have not succeeded in accomplishing anything of importance, are ready to throw sand on his axles, and neutralize his efforts, until the workers are discouraged, and the work abandoned; after which the sand-throwers relapse into a condition of quietude. They have done what they could, which was simply to hinder others from doing anything, and now their song is, “I told you so; I knew that nothing would be done.” Most churches have a surplus of these sand-throwers, who could be spared; and if in their place could be substituted a few of these men who oil the machinery, who lubricate instead of irritate, feed the fires instead of throwing water upon them, and who are as ready to work as those sand-throwers are to grumble, nobody would be damaged by the change. Better still would it be, if some of these very men would cease throwing sand, and begin pouring on oil. They might be a power for good, and men might thus be spared one of the grievous vexations of their lives.—Safeguard.