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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



pure In heart than most men, I want to tell you 

 It is not so. My life is full of giving way to 

 temptation, more or less. Scarcely an hour 

 passes but that I yield to sin, either in thought 

 or in deed; and when I yield, even in thought, 

 trouble and disaster come. When I say. as 

 Joseph did, " How, then, can I do this wicked- 

 ness, and sin against God?" and at the same 

 time turn resolutely away from sin, the reward 

 is sure to come, sooner or later. God blesses 

 those who are faithful — by no manner of means 

 those who are criiujUig, but, on the contrary, 

 those who are manly. God expects men to 

 stand up in a inanly way, and look him in the 

 face. The man who obeys God's commands 

 can do this without cringing. The cringing 

 belongs to him who is so foolish as to think he 

 can cheat the Almighty; or to him who says 

 in his heart, "There is no God;" or, worse still, 

 to the man who says, '• God does not see and 

 God does not know." The latter one is apt to 

 reason, "If I conceal this thing so no man sees 

 it — so nobody sees it — then I am safe from pun- 

 ishment." Of all the foolishness in this world, 

 It seems to me the latter is the most so of all. 



Your quotation. "Jacob have I loved, but 

 Esau have I hated," was no partiality at ail. 

 God loved Jacob because Jacob recognized God, 

 and was, to a certain extent, obedient to him. 

 Esau probably rejected God and his commands. 

 But the exprestiion does not so much refer to 

 the persons of the men as it does to the spirit- 

 ual nature of Jacob's descendants as compared 

 with the flesh-loving world around them. The 

 Bible does not tell us every thing. A very few 

 brief words sometimes stand in the place of 

 what might be the history of nations. It has 

 been urged that Jacob was dishonest and 

 tricky. So he was at times and to a certain 

 extent: but for all that he probably averaged 

 better than almost any other individual in his 

 day; in other words, there was better timber in 

 him than in Esau. He had some regard for 

 God and his holy commands; and we know, 

 too, that he repented of his wickedness. You 

 say God made them both. So he did; but, ray 

 dear friend. God made us all free agents. He 

 made one part of us. and honored us above all 

 animated nature by leaving it within our 

 hands to make the other part. An ol i i)roverb 

 says, " Every man is tlie architect of his own 

 fortune." God gave us a human life to live. 

 He placed us between duty and inclination. 

 He said, "Choose ye this day whom ye will 

 serve." Every man — in fact, every child — has 

 to make his own choice, and he deliberately 

 and with free agency chooses. The choice is 

 between inclination and duty; and the whole 

 world is choosing in this way every hour and 

 every minute. Shall it he what I want or what 

 I ought to do? If you choose what you would 

 rather do, or let inclmation decide, you can 

 not be one of God's children, and he has no 

 pleasure in you. If, however, in place of in- 

 clination you choose what you ought to do, and 

 walk in the path of duty, then you can claim 

 all the promises in God's holy word. 



It would be out of place for me to speak of 

 my own goodness; and, in fact, there is none 

 to speak .of; but I do know this, if I know any 

 thing: The world is full of people who are con 

 tinually in trouble because they can not and 

 will not consent to let duty rule, instead of in- 

 clination. There are com'pi^ratively few who 

 will choose death rather than dishonor. But 

 those who do— those who say, like Joseph (ex- 

 cuse me if I use the expression again). "How, 

 then, can I do this great wickedness, and sin 

 against God?" will surely get their reward. 

 The whole world is clamoring for men of prin- 

 ciple, and men who can not be bought nor 

 bribed. Witness the terrible state of the liquor- 



trafKic in our country, and realize, if you can, 

 that the reason why this sin and crime can not 

 be abated is because we can not find (or do not 

 elect) men who are fearless and brave, and who 

 are proof against the temptation that will 

 surely be brought to bear upon the one who 

 has authority. Over and over again I have 

 had proof that God rewards even a little bit of 

 faith and trust, and steady holding out against 

 temptation. Yes, when we are faithful just a 

 little he rewards us far beyond what we can 

 expect. " He that is faithful in that which is 

 least is also faithful in much." The "blood- 

 stained Christian religion " is "blood-stained " 

 because of sin. I presume your expression 

 about sending flattery into space refers to 

 prayer. Our proof-reader, who is taking down 

 these notes, gave me some suggestions after 

 reading your letter. Here is one of them: 



"Christianity is accepted and taught in our 

 colleges, where the highest order of intelligence 

 and virtue prevails." 



And, of course, our colleges teach and advise 

 prayer to God. If the highest order of intelli- 

 gence in the world accepts prayer as a real 

 power in this world, what shall we say? 

 Again, friend W. P. Root suggests the follow- 

 ing: 



"Mr. Kauftman's views would be cheered 

 and accepted throughout all the haunts of vice 

 in the world, but would be rejected by the vir- 

 tuous as a class, even though the latter be not 

 professing Christians." 



My own experience corroborates this most 

 emphatically. I do not know where you be- 

 long nor where you came from, friend K.; but 

 I am sure that you have somehow got into bad 

 company. There is one trouble with your rea- 

 soning—you make positive, flat assertions. 

 Perhaps you mean to say, in your opinion; or, 

 as it looks to you; but you must have forgotten 

 to put it in. You say my Christianity has been 

 a positive loss to my business. Well, dear 

 friend, if it is indeed true that I have lost some 

 business that I might have had, were it not for 

 my faith that God sees and rewards and pun- 

 ishes, then I agree with you. I hope I speak 

 truthfully when I say that I do not want any 

 business or any thing else that God would be 

 displeased to see me have. After dictating that 

 last sentence I went over a brief mental review 

 that almost frightens me. May God help me 

 to live up to my own preaching. 



Now, once more let me protest against your 

 positive assertions. You say, "A man must 

 always act the way he is built." Why, my 

 dear friend, would you tell a lot of children, 

 when they had just commenced going tb school, 

 that they must act out all the evil impulses 

 that there are in them? The work of the 

 teacher— the work of the father and mother — 

 the work of the teachers in our Sunday-schools, 

 and prayer-meetings, is to exhort all mankind 

 not to act the way they are " built," or, if you 

 choose, the way their selfish impulses would 

 prompt them. A child gets mad, and is tempt- 

 ed to swear, as he has heard some bad men do. 

 The kind Christian teacher says, "No. no, 

 Johnny! Hold back the 'swear words;' look 

 pleasant, and you will soon overcome them. 

 Be a man. Do not be like the unreasoning 

 brutes." A fellow in our county jail confessed 

 to having ruined a little girl— or, at least, he 

 tried to do so. I remonstrated. He said that I, 

 perhaps, at my age. was not prepared to sym- 

 pathize with young blood when they do things 

 they ought not to. Said I. " My friend, suppose 

 that little girl were ^our own child; then how 

 should some other man have behaved, although 

 temptation were thrown across his pathway ? " 

 He squirmed some under this hard question, 

 for he is a married man and a father. Then he 



