98 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



Now, here comes in another peculiarity of 

 this friend of mine. He has always been ready 

 to take care of himself as I have told you, and, 

 as a natural consequence, it is very hard for 

 him to own up that he has been wrong. From 

 what I know of him. I should expect it to be 

 hard for him to let go of till his unbelief at once. 

 He has read so many books and papers publish- 

 ed by unbelievers that his sympathy still hangs 

 with them, and probably will. Never mind. 

 It is not so very strange if he is prepared to give 

 a good many of us a just and right reproof. 

 Read the following: 



It hurts me to hear a iiKiii abused because lie is 

 annifldel. It hurts me to bear a Christian quote 

 men as infidels because they are bad men. There 

 are very few infidels in this prison. 



The next is exceedingly characteristic of 

 him: 



I do not feel Uke a man yet, but bke an infant 

 feeling- its way. But one ihing is sure; and that is, 

 1 have made a promise to God to give one-tenth to 

 him, as he shall direct, as soon as I get out of here, 

 if I ever do. 



He has always been liberal, even to a fault: 

 anditvvas just like him to pledge a tenth of 

 his inco?ne: but, true to his nature, he insists 

 that God, and God only, shall direct how that 

 tenth shall be used. No human wisdom is 

 to say to what church or to what Sunday- 

 school, or whether, in fact, it is to go to (lUy 

 church or Sunday-school: but the Holy Spirit 

 is to guide and direct. The very best part of 

 his letter, to me, is that point where he says he 

 feels like an infant feeling its way. He is a 

 child yet. and must be led and directed as a 

 kind parent leads and diiccts a little child. I 

 wonder whether he has found it in his Bible 

 whei'e it says, "Except ye become as little 

 children, ye can not enter the kingdom of hea- 

 ven.'" I am sure I need his kind reproof, where 

 bespeaks about harshness and lack of charity 

 toward infidels. I have sometimes thought I 

 would try not to use the word '• infidel " any 

 more. Now, then, let us go back to this brief 

 little sermon that comes from one of the prisons 

 in our land. 



And now, dear friends, let us not abuse otliers be- 

 cause they can not see as we do. Remember kind- 

 ness and charity. May the blessbig: of God rest 

 upon you all is the prayer of your old friend. 



Truly, " Blessed is the man whose strength 

 is in the Lord." 



Notes of Travel 



FROM A. I. ROOT. 



WASHINGTOX, CONTINUED. 



There was so much to see in the city, and the 

 bee-keepers, like myself, were so anxious to see 

 the sights, they crowded the business along on 

 the evening of the second day, and, by univer- 

 sal consent, devoted the next day to sight- 

 seeing. Our good friends Benton and Danzen- 

 baker volunteered to go as guides. Our first 

 point of interest was the Capitol building. I 

 was somewhat disappointed that none of the 

 crowd seemed to find as much to hold their at- 

 tention in that one piece of statuary as I did. 

 It is not to be wondered at, because statuary 

 and wonderful paintings abound everywhere in 

 and about the Capitol btiilding. There is no 

 use in trying to desci'ibe the Capitol of our 

 United States. There have been many criti- 

 cisms, no doubt, in regard to the amount of 

 money expended on the edifice. But we may 

 philosophize a little. I think, as the boy did 

 when he said the Fourth of July comes only 



once a year. There is only one Capitol build- 

 ing in the United States, and surely no child of 

 Uncle Samuel would want to see it a shabby 

 affair, or very much behind the State buildings 

 at the capitals of many of our States. The 

 dome is visible for many miles in every direc- 

 tion; and no wonder: for it is 180 feet in height. 

 The rotunda is 9() feet in diameter. As you go 

 inside and look up it seems almost like the 

 starry heavens above; but here, in place of 

 the stars, is a magnificent painting, or collec- 

 tion of paintings. I have been told how many 

 thousands of dollars this single painting cost, 

 but I can not remember now. Artists are still 

 at work, and nobody knows when it will be fin- 

 ished. All about this great central room are also 

 wonderful pictures commemorating different 

 events in our nation's history. Our guides kept 

 admonishing us that, if we stopped to look so 

 long at some single piece of work or f>tatuary, 

 we should never get through it all; and as we 

 passed from room to room, whenever we hap- 

 pened to come back into the room we had visit- 

 ed before, we found just as much of interest 

 and wonder as we did the first time. We were 

 a good deal like a pack of innocent juveniles. 

 We kept looking and staring everywhere; and 

 our comrades kept admonishing us. ■" Oh! you 

 need not stop there, tor you have been there 

 already. Come over this way." And so it was. 

 I am not politician enough to give the names of 

 the different rooms. 1 remember something^ 

 about the Senate Chamber and the Hall of Rep- 

 resentatives; marble stairways without num- 

 ber; wonderful pieces of architecture, besides 

 the paintings. The part of the building devot- 

 ed to the library was of interest to me. The 

 books and periodicals have now accumulated 

 in such vast quantities that a new library build- 

 ing of gigantic dimensions, as it seemed to me, 

 is being rapidly pushed forward to accommodate 

 the volumes. We did not go into the White 

 House, because somebody was sick there, and a 

 card was turned so it showed, '" No Admittance 

 to Visitors." This White House was partially 

 burned by the British troops in 1814; and to 

 restore its blackened walls, they were painted 

 white— hence the name. White House. 



I was greatly interested in the greenhouses 

 and the botanical gardens, as a matter of 

 course; and the sight of pine-apples growing 

 and ripening, even though we had an intense 

 freezing temperature outdoors, was a novelty 

 indeed. This particular greenhouse was built, 

 it seems, to test new varieties of pine-apples. 

 Now, I had always supposed that a pine-apple 

 was a pine-apple, and that that was all there 

 was to it. But how many kinds do you sup- 

 pose the government is testing? Why, there 

 must be forty or fifty— may be a hundred. 

 What is to become of us if every thing is to con- 

 tinue to develop and amplify itself, and 

 spread out after this fashion? We have been 

 condemning seedsmen's catalogues because 

 they had thirty or forty varieties of peas, as 

 many of tomatoes, and so on with every thing 

 else; and other fruits have got to be put 

 through a similar course of training. Pine- 

 apples, oranges, and even lemons, are to have 

 new varieties until their names are legion; and 

 just now there is not only talk about having 

 oranges and lemons, without any seeds, but 

 apples and pears, and even persimmons. It is 

 too much trouble, you see. for Young America 

 to get the seeds out and throw them away. 

 But, "Here! come on!" I imagine I hear the 

 guide saying, because we speculate too long on 

 some one art or industry. 



Somebody asked if I wanted to see the fish. 

 To be sure. T did. I always want to see fish. 

 Fishes come next to flowers. But even when I 

 expressed my willingness. I did not dream that 



