Monthly Musing  .  .  . 

THE CAUTIOUS MEN
Robert Meyers 

Because I believe a Chinese proverb which says that "a single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books," when I meet people with interests like my own I can hardly wait for that moment when we "open up" and disclose our minds to each other. 

The Oriental theorem has become a living truth for me. I have sat at table with Leroy Garrett and Carl Ketcherside, to name familiar names, and experienced the truth of Proverbs 27:17 ‑ "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the wits of another." We have discovered with Emerson in those happy moments that "good talk is the laboratory and workshop of the student." 

But not every man whose talk would enrich me has been willing to reveal his mind. Often I am disappointed because a new friend, though his deepest concerns parallel mine, chooses to stay behind his fortress of reserve. We make polite and meaningless noises, and after a time we separate knowing nothing significant about each other. I have met a cautious man. 

It is naive, probably to expect candor so quickly as I often look for it. But I know how fast time flies and how, in Robert Frost's words, "way leads on to way," and I fear always that I may not have another chance to look deeply into this stranger's mind and to learn from him. 

Because of a lifelong interest in religion, I am most hopeful when I talk with men who teach and preach Christianity. I expect them to be so excited about theology that the barriers will fall quickly and we will mutually identify our hearts and minds. But it is with this very group that I am most often disappointed, particularly when the teaching or preaching minister is respected and supported by some large, orthodox group. 

In such cases, almost invariably, the man refuses to commit himself unreservedly to discussion of sensitive issues. He prefers caution. He puts his fingertips together judiciously, he ponders the floor, he points out that brethren do differ on these matters, he says he tries to see all sides, he is hopeful that all will work out in the end. 

What he says, finally, is nothing. 

That this caution is a form of wisdom I know well enough. It is the best possible way to stay out of trouble. It provides a dubious if effective cement for holding together many all are free. 

disparate elements in one's class or congregation by making them think that their teacher or preacher shares all their ideas. It makes for survival in a world where far too many people respect only the man who nods agreeably to all received opinions. 

Some verses which deserve to be better known express my view of such caution: 

        A wise man holds himself in check,
        But fools and poets run ahead.
        One must be credulous or sit
        Forever with the living dead.
        The wise man shuts his door at night
        And pulls the bolts and drops the bars.
        One must go trustful through the dark
        To earn the friendship of the stars. 

A part of' believing in others is believing in their eagerness to hear, without irritation, one's deepest convictions. One must open the doors and go trustful through the dark labyrinth of another's mind, or sit forever with the living dead who ask no questions, frame no rebuttals, upset no cherished opinions. 

"I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me." Those are the words of a man who is fearless about his own opinions. "It is amusing," Thomas Carlyle went on, "to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it." 

As I reflect upon the college lectureships I have so often attended, and even upon those protracted affairs we too easily identified as "gospel meetings," I wonder if in their careful caution they were not sometimes exactly what Carlyle described: coquettery with an echo.
 

No one can be perfectly free until all are free.  —Spencer