"Keep a-Moving."
"Please keep a-moving on, gentlemen!" That is the way the Boston policemen talk in a crowd, where it is necessary to maintain at least a narrow lane of sidewalk for pedestrians. Sometimes, when the crowd becomes severely packed, the policemen have no time for manners. "Move ON, there!" is the mandate then. And the crowd moves on.
Would that we might have policemen detailed upon a similar service on the highways of the soul! Would that by some authoritative power the obstructionists of the church and of society might be commanded out of the way! Would that the streets of the Kingdom of God might be kept unimpeded for the onward march of Progress!
You know the different sorts of obstructionists. Here comes a Grand Good Thing. Perhaps it is a useful organization. Perhaps it is a helpful method. Perhaps it is a new thought of God or of man or of society. Here it comes, the light sparkling around it, men following it eagerly, hurrahs rising in its wake.
But watch the obstructionists standing stolidly in its way. "We were here first," says one of them, planting his back firmly against a post. "No one invited it here," says another, scowling. "Mere temporary froth and foam," asserts a third. "The old ways are good enough for me," a fourth declares. "Let it wait awhile," says still another; "let it come back next month, or a year from now, and we'll give way to it, maybe."
So in the crowd, and a lot of others like them, and when the Grand Good Thing reaches that point in its royal march it finds the road completely blocked, and it must get through, if at all, by fighting every inch of the way.
For, as yet, we have no policemen on the streets of the soul.
Ah, brother, if you can't help the Grand Good Things along, do at least get out of their way! Do at least give others a chance to help them and get help from them. You may be sure that the thing is a predestined failure. Well, let it fail, then, without any downward push from you. Predestined failures will fail anyway, you know, without your taking trouble about them. And it is barely possible that you are mistaken in your diagnosis. Keep your doubts to yourself; the rest of us have enough of our own.
Gangway! Your room is better than your company! As soon as your company can be constructive, hopeful, cheering, we want it; oh, how we shall want it! Then you will move right on with the hurrahing crowd, and will even give it a few gentle pushes toward the goal. But if you can't move that way, then move out of the way. Anyway, please keep a-moving on!