1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



323 



men may all be standing still and waiting for a 

 tool if I am not on hand to find the tool or take 

 a new one out of the store rather than waste 

 more time than the old tool is worth. Well, if 

 I should start everybody off at work before 

 breakfast, Mrs. Root would be annoyed by hav- 

 ing the breakfast late, and having her work 

 thrown out of joint. Another thing, our morn- 

 ing prayers very often come right in when the 

 men and team are waiting, or something else 

 of a similar kind. The temptation is great to 

 skip worship for just this time. Shall we skip 

 it? God forbid. There may be important 

 duties to be attended to; there may be others 

 waiting; it may be a question of duties; but 

 my verdict, after long years of experience, is 

 that we had better delay almost any thing else, 

 or, I might almost say. eiiery thing else, rather 

 than think of skipping the daily Bible-reading 

 and prayers. A good friend of mine has said, 

 " Stick to your family worship, and it will drive 

 out all discord;" or. in other words, " if discoi'd 

 does not drive out family worship, then family 

 worship will surely drive out discord." I know 

 how distasteful it is to think of taking the Bible 

 in hand just after you have been scolding or 

 contradicting; but I have sometimes thought 

 that we might consistently sum it up in the 

 words of the old veteran commander Joshua, 

 *' Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." I do 

 not know for sure that the husband is alwdys 

 the aggressor. I am afraid, however, he usual- 

 ly is. In a fit of impatience he makes a state- 

 ment, and overstates it. When you are vexed, 

 Satan always stands at your elbow, and urges 

 you to put it strong. If you listen to him you 

 will go so far that your wife takes it up and 

 says, " Now. that is not true, and you 'know it 

 is not." The latter, of course, is an additional 

 sting to the lash; and Satan prompts you to 

 reply, even though you know better when you 

 say it, " It is true." By this time your faces 

 are both flushed. Children are iiery apt learn- 

 ers in such matters, and the disease is terrlb/i/ 

 catching. It pains my heart as I go over it 

 now; and yet I have, during my travels, heard 

 almost or quite as bad as the above, even while 

 I, a stranger, was present. Dear friends, do 

 not be alarmed. It was not in a bee-keeper's 

 home, and it was years ago. Perhaps I have 

 taken an extreme case. I sincerely hope it Is 

 extreme. But now and then I get glimpses of 

 the outcome of these things. It grows and 

 grows; and the very best disposition in the 

 world is hardly proof against it if one remains 

 long where it is going on. Were I so disposed, 

 and if Satan would lend his help— and, by the 

 way. he is always exceedingly ready to help— I 

 verily believe that I could, in process of time, 

 make the sweetest-tempered man or woman in 

 the world bitter and hard and ugly. I have 

 been told sometimes that I have a 7'«re to/ent 

 for provoking people, when I feel that way. 

 God helping me, I never mean to use that talent 

 any more; and if I have such a talent, Christ 

 Jesus has, I believe, given me another talent 

 or gift. It certainly must have come from him, 

 for it never belonged to A. I. Root himself — 

 a talent for helping people to be gentle and 

 kind — to turn away wrath with a soft answer. 

 To turn the figure round, Christ helping me I 

 have sometimes thought that, by taking plenty 

 of time and great pains, and much prayer for 

 help, I might succeed in taking one of the most 

 bitter, hard, and ugly persons, and making him 

 gentle and kind. It is hard work, though. A 

 grown-up person who has fallen into a way of 

 being hateful can be made to give it up and be- 

 come sweet-tempered, only by a tremendous 

 deal of hard work. It must be " line upon line, 

 precept upon precept." It must be a continual 

 rendering of good for evil, and replying to hard 



and cutting speeches with soft and gentle an- 

 swers right straight along for months, and per- 

 haps years. The disagreeable person must be 

 loved with no common love. That 13th chap- 

 ter of I. Corinthians tells how it is done. You 

 must suffer long, and be kind. You must not 

 get provoked, no matter what happens. Neither 

 must you even think evil—" bea»-eth all things, 

 believeth all things, endureth all things." 

 This is the way the teacher must go to work to 

 redeem the pupil. I know it can be done, for I 

 have seen it done. A gentle, loving, pious wife 

 or mother has again and again transformed a 

 bad and wicked man, with Jesus' help. When 

 I heard the story of John and Mary I fell to 

 wondering how it would have turned out had 

 Mary been my wife — I mean, suppose I should 

 have been suddenly converted when well along 

 in life, and suppose my wife was not converted, 

 but remained just the same. The man is the 

 stronger of the two; and if he succeeds when 

 he takes the lead in educating his wife to dis- 

 cord, he can usually, by taking the lead, and 

 asking for grace, lead her back to gentleness 

 and grace and truth; and when it is done — 

 when you have succeeded in winning your 

 w'Ife. oh what a glorious victory! If there is 

 joy in heaven among the angels over a reclaim- 

 ed sinner, what joy must there be over the 

 mother of a home, who has been reclaimed and 

 brought from darkness into lightl 



If you should be away from home, the invited 

 guest of some well-bred people, you would never 

 think or dream of grumbling— no, not even if 

 the breakfast were so late as to cause you to 

 miss your train. Now. if there is any one on 

 earth who demands your most gentle bearing 

 and your kindest courtesy, it is the wife whom 

 God gave you. Some of you may suggest that 

 God did not give her — that it came about some- 

 thing the way I have described in the story of 

 John and Mary. But, my friend, you are 

 wrong. "What therefore God hath joined to- 

 gether, let not man put asunder." If you are 

 lawfully wedded man and wife, that is enough 

 —the command of our text holds. If there are 

 children in the home who belong to vou two, 

 then a sacred seal has been placed by Ood him- 

 self on the union that exists between you; and 

 whether yon. during the marriage ceremony, 

 promised to honor and cherish this partner or 

 not. all mankind and God himself expect you 

 to do so. 



I shall have something further to tell you in 

 regard to John and Mary in our next, Provi- 

 dence permitting. 



FINDING WATER WITH A SWITCH. 



Severai. good friends have written me that 

 this thing is true and honest, and that there 

 really is a force in nature, heretofore unrecog- 

 nized by science and scientific men; and several 

 declare they can trace underground streams as 

 you would trace a stream or brook on the sur- 

 face. Now, this is going to make the test com- 

 paratively easy, if it is true: First, have a row 

 of stakes set, outlining the course of the under- 

 ground stream; then let the operator be blind- 

 folded, and see if he will set some stakes along 

 the same line. When you find a person who 

 succeeds in doing this, then I am ready to pay 

 him a visit, and perhaps take along some one 

 from some of our experiment stations, so as to 

 have the matter tested by a competent official. 



A. I. R. 



