1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



185 



Our Homes. 



Many are the afflictions <if the risliteoiis; but tlie 

 Lord delivereth liini oul of tliem all.— Psai^m :W: 19. 



From the above it would seem that it is God's 

 will that we should bear afflictions, and, to a 

 certain extent, pain and sutfering. That is, a 

 certain amount of trial and affliction seems to 

 be best for poor weak humanity. Don't let me 

 be misunderstood here. God is our father, and 

 we are his children. Our best well-being seems 

 to demand that we should come to him often. 

 We should make him — or his Son — our friend 

 and counselor. If we had good health and 

 strength, and success in every thing everywhere, 

 we should become proud, overbearing, and per- 

 haps indifferent and lazy. I am sure of it. for I 

 have oftentimes been conscious that, when I am 

 relieved of responsibility, pain, and trials, I/or- 

 <jet to be thankful. Yes, I forget the great God 

 above, and what I owe to him; therefore, in 

 the language of our text, we are to recognize 

 that "many are the aftiictions of the right- 

 eous;" and these afflictions are not always 

 because we have done wrong. The tornado 

 that blows down onr buildings and does us 

 injury is certainly no fault of ours. It is some- 

 thing we can not very well help or prevent; 

 neither does it necessarily follow that it is be- 

 cause we are wicked. A great many of our 

 afflictions and sufferings do come because of 

 our own sinfulness, but not necessarily all of 

 them. 



Now, let us not forget the last half of our 

 text: "But the Lord delivereth him out of 

 them all." That is a pretty broad promise, 

 my friends. No matter what overtakes us_^ nor 

 whose fault it is, the promise is that the Liord 

 can and ivill deliver his people out of all of 

 these things. 



Since my talks in regard to doctoring without 

 medicine, and especially since the little illus- 

 tration I gave you a short time ago, how Mrs. 

 Root was given relief in answer to prayer (when 

 medicines and doctors seemed to be powerless), 

 I have not only had great numbers of kind let- 

 ters, hut several books have been sent me in 

 regard to this matter. One that attracts my 

 attention most of all is a little book of about 

 ;.'50 pages, by E. E. Byrum, of Grand Junction, 

 Mich. I see the price marked on the cover is 

 25 cts. The title of this book is " Divine Heal- 

 ing of Soul and Body." This title of itself 

 awakened my interest, as you might feel sure 

 it would. Now. I have read a large number of 

 books already on this matter. Please do not 

 feel hurt, dear friends, when I tell you I have 

 felt troubled about this "faith cure;" and es- 

 pecially have T felt troubled when I have known 

 these people to carry these matters to such ex- 

 tremes that they neglected to send for a physi- 

 cian, in a critical case. Yes, I think there are 

 instances where, instead of employing a sur- 

 geon to set a broken limb, the friends have 

 relied on their prayers, and expected God to 

 perform a miracle. Please pardon me for this 

 plain talk, for I think this is about all I have 

 to say in the wav of fault-findine in regard to 

 faith cure. Well, this little book of friend 

 Byrum's seems to be very sensible and rational, 

 even while it tells of wonderful cures that came 

 about by simply trusting God, and holding fast 

 to his promises. May I digress a little just 

 here? Qniteaeood many religions hooks are 

 sent to me to read. A good many of them, it 

 seems to me. are a string of quotations from 

 the Bible, without point or reason— at least, 

 they do not appeal to my good sense or under- 

 standing. I absolutely can not have the pa- 

 tience to read them, and it troubles me to think 



that other people should commend a book so 

 very highly, when to me it has no connected 

 idea. 1 wonder if any of the rest of you have 

 had similar experiences. 1 have tried to think 

 the fault was mine; but for some reason God 

 has not given me a faculty to understand theo- 

 logical doctrines; or. in other words, it seems 

 to me the dear friends who write these books 

 and read them are aivay off from the track. 

 They are, wasting their paper and time and ink 

 on things that are comparatively unimportant. 

 I have been in the habit of giving some of these 

 hooks to the pastor of our church. Very likely 

 God call- ns to investigate along different lines; 

 and what inierestsone does not inierestanother. 

 Now let me go back to the little book, "Divine 

 Healing of Soul and Body." Friend Byrum 

 quotes scripture texts right along, but he uses 

 them in a plain, matter-of-fact, sensible way. 

 He uses the texts as I would use a hammer, 

 saw, or crowbar. They mean something, and 

 carry conviction. The first pan of the book is 

 devoted to the healing of the soul; and this, 

 surely, is a plain, common-seni-e idea. A man 

 can not expect God to heal his body when he is 

 in spiritual darkness. It has pained me exceed- 

 ingly to hear certain persons who are not godly 

 men, and not praying men, talk "Christian 

 science." Yes. and I think there are those of 

 this class who advertise to pray for sick people 

 for a certain sum of money— say five or ten dol- 

 lars. Such things seem to me "just awful." I 

 know it has been urged that the laborer is 

 worthy of his Itire, and that, where a good man 

 devotes his time to the laying-on of hands, and 

 prayer, and people get well, they should give 

 something for his support. In fact, I have 

 heard of those who make no charge whatever 

 for this sort of treatment, but tell their patients 

 after they get well they can give them what 

 they choose. This may seem to be very fair; 

 but. notwithstanding, I do not feel satisfied 

 that it is the right thing to do. Our Savior 

 never received any sort of recompense for his 

 divine healing; and if it be true that God has 

 seen fit in these latter days to commission any 

 human being to heal in like manner, I should 

 say let him shun even the appearance of evil 

 by refusing to accept pay. He who feedeth the 

 ravens can supply the wants of such a child of 

 his. Mueller, in his great work in London, 

 went to God, and to him only, for help. 



Permit me to say right here that a good 

 friend in California has felt very much hurt 

 because of what I said about Schlatter and his 

 alleged cures. Schlatter never received any 

 equivalent, if I am correct, for what he accom- 

 plished in the way of healing; and this one 

 thing gave him his great celebrity and wonder- 

 ful power. Had he at the same time been an 

 evangelist — had he been exhorting people to 

 righteoustnes-: and godly living, and had he 

 done spiritual healing along with the other, I 

 should have been ready to admit that God had 

 seen fit to give him miraculous power. As it 

 was, T could not learn that he had raised the 

 standard of godliness anywhere. Those he 

 healed were not even told to "go in peace, and 

 sin no more." From all the evidence I could 

 get I was led to believe that people imagined 

 themselves healed, just as they had imagined 

 themselves benefited by that innocent and 

 senseless toy, Electropoise (it is the machine, 

 mind you. that I call innocent, and not the pro- 

 prietors of the thing nor the papers that accept- 

 ed the advertisement of it). 



Now, before I finish what I have to say in 

 regard to "Divine Healing." let me notice an- 

 other book — a much larger one — entitled 

 " Science of Living; the New Gospel of Health." 

 So far as I can make out. the great point in 

 this last book is, that people should " go with- 



