A lesson in graciousness
Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church
A few years back (2007), Time magazine ran a report on the 50 worst cars of all time. The first listed: the 1899 Horsey Horseless—although it isn’t certain if it was ever built.
What caught my attention was the name of the inventor, Uriah Smith of Battle Creek, Michigan. For many Seventh-day Adventists, Uriah Smith is well known as a gifted church pioneer and long-serving editor of Adventist Review.
He was also an inventor of such diverse things as an artificial leg with a moveable ankle, a school desk with an improved folding seat and the Horsey Horseless.
To soothe the nerves of horses in the presence of “horseless carriages,” Smith suggested a wooden horse head be attached at the front. Then it would resemble a horse and carriage. “The live horse would be thinking of another horse,” Time quotes Smith, “and before he could discover his error and see that he had been fooled, the strange carriage would be passed.”
With hindsight, it’s a crazy idea.
He wasn’t alone in wild car ideas. In 1911, Milton Reeves decided an eight-wheeled car would give a smoother ride and displayed the ActoAuto at the first Indianapolis 500. When he had no orders, he built the six-wheeled SextoAuto with no more success. He’s now best remembered as the inventor of the muffler—good idea.
Uriah Smith is best remembered as an Adventist pioneer and writer-editor. It’s true there’s a cluttered wordiness in his style, but that’s not his fault. Everyone wrote that way then. Much of what he wrote still makes good sense.
But isn’t this the deal? You and me, we have good and bad ideas. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which from within our own heads.
Fortunately, the occasional crazy idea doesn’t mean Uriah or Milton—or we—are crazy. Let’s call it a human condition, and let’s be as gracious about other people’s ideas as we are with our own.
Tags: Bruce Manners
Thanks for a well-written reminder that we all can enjoy the God-given ability to think and do, to dream and create.
That’s what I admire most about the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers. They pushed in new directions—theologically, geographically, educationally. They made some bad choices and came up with some bad ideas, but they kept trying, learning as they went. We benefit from their experimentation.
Maybe we need to create the generous spirit and culture of adventure for the next generation of Adventist inventors.