1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



607 



run off across the country, because it is confined 

 to a certain line by an iron tracl<. The iron 

 track is a good thing, but neither you nor I 

 would like to be circumscribed in just that way. 

 We should like to ramble over the whole uni- 

 verse. By his permission to ramble he places 

 a responsibility upon us. We have to take care 

 of ourselves and our bodies. If we were slaves 

 in bondage, and had a master or a guardian to 

 look after us, and see that we did not get into 

 mischief, we might be spared from sin and 

 crime; but our liberty— in fact, the very liberty 

 we boast so much of in our United States- 

 would be cut off. We like liberty. It is a com- 

 pliment to humanity, that God has seen fit to 

 give us liberty. But with this liberty comes 

 the possibility of sin and crime. When help- 

 less innocent women and children are called 

 upon to suffer, it seems to us to be awful, and 

 we are inclined to ask why God made humanity 

 in such a way that the helpless and innocent 

 are so often called upon to suffer. 



A neighbor's little girl once suffered severely 

 with the earache. Once, when the pain let up 

 a little, she asked, '■ Mamma, do little girls ever 

 die of the earache?" For many days and 

 nights she suffered the most excruciating pain. 

 Why does God permit such things'? I can not 

 tell. I only know that the world seems to be 

 fashioned in this manner. The last word on 

 the lips of this little girl was the little prayer 

 that her mother taught her to say just before 

 she went to sleep at night. She might have 

 reasoned, after a childish fashion, that God 

 had been so very cruel and hard toward her she 

 would not say her prayer any more: but is it 

 not far better— oh I a thousand times better- 

 that no thoug*ht ever entered her childish heart 

 that God could do any wrong, or make a mis- 

 take ■? 



It may be hard for the human intellect to 

 comprehend or compass the thought of God's 

 foreknowledge and, at the same time, free 

 hinnan agency. Yet common sense tells us— 

 yes, it tells even a child — that we are free to do 

 right or wrong. If we do wrong, the conse- 

 quences fall upon our heads; and it is through 

 trial and discipline that we learn wisdom. In 

 our experiment stations they have trial-grounds 

 where they test things, in our grounds at 

 Columbus, O., the soil on the rich river-bottom 

 was too good for an experiment station. The 

 farmers all over our State complained that the 

 tests were not fair; and finally the experiment 

 station was moved so that a part of it was on 

 some of the hardest and poorest clay ground in 

 the State of Ohio. The old farmers wanted 

 our college boys to try their hands and make 

 experiments on some of the poor and unpromis- 

 ing soil of the State. They were right. », « 



Now, if God had decided to have this world 

 of ours a trial-ground to let us fight our way 

 through, and thus bring out the best there is 

 in all of us, could he have planned it very 

 much better? I have told you about a time 

 when our Medina schools were so very bad that 

 Mrs. Root questioned the wisdom of letting our 

 boy go to school. Should we keep him at 

 home? By no manner of means. A boy kept 

 out of scliool would be like a potato grown in 

 the dark. Let the boy go. But talk to him; 

 encourage him, and exijlain to him the evils he 

 must encounter, and fortify him so that he will 

 come out unharmed; then go to work and help 

 the teachers. Exhort, entreat, and ftglit, if 

 nothing but fighting will do the work, until 

 you fight the tilth, obscenity, and blasphemy 

 out of the school. Now. if you will promise not 

 to think I am boasting, I will tell you what the 

 superintendent of our schools said a few days 

 ago. He asked me if I remembered, when I 

 was on the school-board, of going through the 



schools and exhorting the boys on tlie subject 

 of profanity, obscenity, cigarette-smoking, etc. 

 I told him I remembered it quite well. " Well," 

 said he, " there has been a better state of af- 

 fairs in our schools from that day to this in 

 consequence of the plain talk you gave them." 

 I remember that I was full of business at the 

 time, and felt as if I could not stop my work; 

 and in ray want of faith I feared ft would not 

 do any good anyhow. Now, I throw this out as 

 a suggestion. If your schools get in just such 

 shape, remember what one individual may do 

 single-handed in encountering evils of this 

 kind. Let the work be followed up by half a 

 dozen good men and women, and it will help 

 the rising generation. 



Now, friend W.. which is wiser — to throw the 

 blame on God for creating human beings, 

 knowing that they will bring evil into the 

 world, or to open your eyes, accept the state of 

 affairs, and go to work with energy and faith 

 to bring good out of evil ! Again, God surely 

 knows what a lot of mischief Satan has done. 

 Now, will you think me reckless when I sug- 

 gest that Satan also does good? The Bible 

 tells us that God shall so manage things and 

 events that the wrath of man shall praise him. 

 Now, right here is another chance for infidels 

 to put in and find fault. You may say, " Well, 

 if bad people do good in a community, I think 

 I will be bad a while. I shall rather enjoy it; 

 and if I do good by the means, what is the 

 harm?" We are never to do evil that good 

 may come of it. Jesus once told his disciples, 

 " It must needs be that offenses come; but woe 

 to that man by whom they come." Wickedness 

 is coming; it will continue to come; and we 

 are going to be strong and good, courageous 

 and brave, because we have to meet wick'edness 

 and sin. But this is no excuse at all for the 

 man who does wickedly; for Christ himself has 

 said, " Woe to that man," etc. The childien of 

 a drunken father often develop great powers of 

 mind, perhaps somewhat by the trials that are 

 thrown upon them in early Tie. The indigni- 

 ties they suffered made them fierce battlers 

 against the evils of intemperance; but no credit 

 to the drunken father who subjected them to 

 these trials. We can not tell how far space 

 or how far the planetary system extends; but 

 for all that it behooves us to keep making bet- 

 ter telescopes, and to keep searching the starry 

 vault above. 



In the same line, we can not tell exactly ivhy 

 sin is in the word; but it is here, in your neigh- 

 borhood, in mine; in your heart, and mine. 

 Shall we lay the blame on God, and say that 

 he need not have placed these possibilities and 

 evil appetites within us? Then we should be 

 on a par with the farmer who sits down and 

 says, " There is no use in trying;" or one who 

 says, '"God did not make things right, and I 

 am not going to exert myself against such odds 

 as there are against me." You see, our text 

 sums ii all up: " For the preaching of the cross 

 is to them that perish, foolishness." It is to 

 them that perisli. you notice, and to them that 

 perish because they would not try; but on the 

 other hand, dear brother (I call you such be- 

 cause you sign yourself " Yours for the truth "), 

 "unto us which are saved, it is the power of 

 God." The whole thing lies before us. Sin is 

 here, and Satan is here. We can follow sin 

 and Satan, if we clioose; but these very things 

 that might discourage us— these very things 

 that pull us down — arc a mountain of .s'/rcdy'/i' 

 to the one wlio is loyal to his God and loyal to 

 himself. These very tilings may be a cause of 

 rejoicing to him who goes forward in faith 

 believing, to liim who is loyal to his country 

 and to his (iod; to him who sees a thousand 

 things in nature on thi' earth beneath, and in 



