1910 



GLEANINGS IN JiEE CULTURE 



431 



us abundant exhortation in his holy word 

 in regard to the importance of holding in 

 check these low appetites, and letting rea- 

 son instead of inclination rule. 



And now to our texts once more. The 

 Jews were constantly questioning the au- 

 thority of Jesus, and demanding to know 

 where he got that authority and power. 

 Never before since the world was created 

 had any man been able to say to the 

 winds and waves, "Peace, be still;" and with 

 all that has been accomplished in the way 

 of science and art it is hardly probable that 

 any man in human form, unless it is the 

 Master himself, shall in the future be able 

 to command obedience of the boisterous ele- 

 ments of nature. Upton Sinclair has de- 

 clared that every one of his friends with 

 their serious maladies could be cured in (wo 

 weeks if they would put themselves under 

 his instruction. I hope he is right about it, 

 but it is a question. The Lamb of (iod that 

 taketh away the sin of the world never made 

 a failure, and he never lost a patient. He 

 said, and says now to the great wide world 

 of humanity, "Come unto me, all ye that 

 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 

 you rest." Just think and consider a mo- 

 ment. What would we think of a human 

 being should he utter such words as these? 

 Jesus continually gave proof of his authori- 

 ty. The miracles that followed at every 

 step attested continually that he was the 

 only one of whom God might say, "This is 

 my beloved Son in whom I am well pleas- 

 ed." Not only did the winds and waves 

 obey him, but when five thousand people 

 were without food, by a single word the five 

 loaves and two fishes fed the multitude, 

 and twelve basketfvdsof the fragments were 

 left. Not only did the elements of nature 

 respond in quick obedience to his simj^le 

 words, but when Lazarus was dead and had 

 been buried four days in the grave, at his 

 quiet command, "Lazarus, come forth," 

 the dead man promptly came to life and 

 stepped forth among liis friends. At the re- 

 cent conference to which I have before al- 

 luded, a talented minister of the gospel gave 

 us quite a discourse in regard to the mira- 

 cles. If I interpreted him correctly he was 

 endeavoring to reconcile those wondrous 

 miracles of Christ with modern science and 

 investigation; and he even suggested that, 

 with a better knowledge of the "underlying 

 laws of nature," we might even now per- 

 form, or approach to a certain extent, some 

 of these miracles. The whole subject was 

 painful to me; and in the discussion that 

 arose at the close of the paper the author of 

 it was rather severely handled by some of 

 the older doctors of divinity. I wanted to 

 say (but there did not seem to be time nor 

 opportunity) that Jesus himself constantly 

 discerned that his power to perform those 

 wonders came direct from the Father above; 

 for he said plainly, "Of myself I do noth- 

 ing." In the case of raising Lazarus, just 

 before he called him back to life he uttered 

 this wonderful prayer to his heavenly Fa- 

 ther: " Father, I thank thee that thou hast 



heard me. And I knew that thou hearest 

 nr^ always; but because of the people which 

 stand by I said it, that they may believe 

 that thou hast sent me." 



NoM% in the above prayer he states very 

 positively and plainly that the power which 

 he used came directly from God. In fact, 

 it was GocVs miracles, performed in response 

 to the reijuest from that well-beloved and 

 only begotten Son. Jesus explained and 

 declared to all the multitudes that his pow- 

 er was a miraculous one. This world of 

 ours is full of tricks and deceptions, not 

 only in business, but our tloctors who are 

 healing the sick (or trying to do so) some- 

 times use tricks and deception; yes, and I say 

 it sadly, not ail of those who stand in our 

 pulpits as God's servants are entirely free 

 from the practice of little deceptions. Now 

 do not understand, jilease, that your old 

 friend who speaks to you on these pages 

 claims that he is entirely honest, and that 

 all the rest of mankind are bad. That sim- 

 ple little sentence uttered by the Sunday 

 School Times, that "deception is always 

 wrong," hits me every little while. God 

 knows I am trying to be honest and sincere 

 from daylight to dark, and every day in the 

 week; but with shame I confess that a good 

 many times I can look back and see that I 

 have made bungling work of it. 



Now, then, frientls, let us take a look at 

 that wondrous man who was part human 

 and part divine. Get your Testaments and 

 read them over again, and see if you can 

 find where he ever deceived or misled. He 

 never made a mistake, for his heavenly 

 Father constantly watched over him and 

 protected him from making mistakes; and 

 that same heavenly Father, through his 

 only Son, will watch over us and protect us 

 in like manner, if we go to him and study 

 his holy word. 



High-pressure Gardening 



By A. I. Root 



MY CORN STORY. 



Now you must be patient with me while 

 I tell my story; for there is not only one 

 but more than one important moral to be 

 gathered out of it. On p. 452, June 1, I told 

 you about testing four bushels of ears of 

 seed corn. Well, some of you, at least, 

 know we had "catching weather" at corn- 

 ])lanting time. Finally we got the ground 

 in pretty good trim, and it was all ready to 

 be marked out and planted. As we have 

 only about half a dozen acres in corn we do 

 our planting with hand planters; and if a 

 man has good seed, and understands using 

 the hand planter — that is, if he has learned 

 to keep watch and to be sure the planter 

 2}lants every time he sets it in a hill, he will 

 be pretty sure to have a good stand. When 

 the ground and every thing was just right, 

 several of my friencis protested, because I 

 thought I had not time to attend our year- 



