1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



831 



see your old mother, or visit your relations. 

 You need not tell anybody why you came home 

 on a visit, but you may tell the great God above. 

 Ask him to direct you wisely (as he did the ser- 

 vant of Abraham when the patriarch sent him 

 back to his kindred in Padan-aram. to get a 

 wife for his son Isaac), and I shall have no fear 

 about the result. Get acquainted with the 

 women you may chance to meet or hear of. You 

 might tell your viother or your sister that you 

 feel it a duty to get married. d: 



Why, I declare! come to think of it, it was a 

 dear sister of mine who first wrote to me of a 

 schoolgirl friend she had found. She wrote me 

 that this friend of hers was the best girl she 

 knew of in the world, and she hoped I would 

 think just as she did. I took her advice, and I 

 have never had reason to regret it. I shall al- 

 ways feel grateful to her because she used her 

 woman's intuition and jud'gment, instead of 

 permitting me to go along blunderingly, and 

 Imagine that some woman I hadn't known for a 

 weeli was perfection itself. Then an older 

 sister, a little later on, gave me some wise 

 counsel that I shall always thank her for. She 

 said in substance: "Dear brother, you two are 

 both more than twenty years old. You will be 

 happier, safer, and more valuable to the com- 

 munity together than you are apart; and the 

 girl you have chosen will save money that you 

 are now wasting in paying for board and other- 

 wise."nShe was right.: c^i 



Some of the brothers may say they have not 

 the money to go east or north, and can not 

 possibly scrape it up. Well, that may be true; 

 but I think the matter may be managed even 

 then. You are perhaps more or less acquainted 

 with some good woman somewhere \n the whole 

 wide world— at least you ought to be. You are 

 at/awZfc if you are not. Get acquainted with 

 her better, by correspondence; or correspond 

 with the mother and sister I have mentioned, 

 or some other friend. Now, no one need to un- 

 der.'Jtand from what I am telling you that 

 every woman wants to get married, for it is not 

 true. Even if you do mai^e a mistake it is not 

 a serious matter. No reasonably intelligent 

 woman ever thought less of a man because he 

 made such advances toward acquaintance, in a 

 manly way. Write her a friendly letter; and if 

 she replies, as she will be pretty sure to do, you 

 can guess from the tone of her reply whether 

 the correspondence had better be continued. I 

 really do not need to suggest how the thing 

 may be managed. If you are capable of doing 

 business ordinarily, you can surely arrange this 

 matter. Some of you may urge that I make 

 the whole thing simply a business matter. I do 

 not; but I do maintain that this thing that is 

 called love between the sexes may be managed 

 and controlled; and I believe that at my age I 

 have had experience enough in that line to 

 know whereof I speak. 



Just one thought that I want to give you will 

 cover the whole ground in regard to this mat- 

 ter; and God's Holy Spirit will, I believe, at- 

 test the truth of what I say. Let me put it this 

 way: Some of you. perhaps (God grant, howev- 

 er, that not very many) may feel that you have 

 made a mistake in choosing a partner for life. 

 If not, may be you have at some time in your 

 life been tempted by Satan to let such a 

 thought come into vour mind. For the sake 

 of an illustration, let us grant, for instance, 

 that you have chosen a woman unsuited to your 

 disposition. Let us even go so far as to say 

 that you would have been very much happier 

 had you chosen some other one — some other wo- 

 man with a better temper, with more physical 

 endurance, better health, or something of that 

 sort. May be some of you are so foolish as to 



say you were induced by some outward circum- 

 stances to marry the woman you did not love 

 and never loved. Let us grant any or all of 

 these conditions — what are you to do? Why, 

 you are simply to he a man— a, man fashioned 

 in God's own image. You are to say to the 

 world, to your own self, and to the great God 

 above, " She is my wife. Before God and man 

 I made a covenant to love, cherish, and protect 

 her; and no matter what comes or what /i ap- 

 peals I am going to do it. In busine.ss matters I 

 am in the habit of keeping all my contracts; 

 and I am going to keep this sacred and solemn 

 contract made before God. If I married her 

 without loving her I am going to commence 

 loving her now. If her temper is bad. with 

 God's help I am going to make it good. If her 

 health is poor, and she is physically weak, then 

 we are going to use all human agencies, con- 

 sistently within our power, to bring her back to 

 health. If that can not be done, then we will 

 make her life as pleasant and easy as it can be 

 made. She is my ivife .I'ust as much as and 

 just as truly as my daughter is my daughter, 

 and I propose to bo father to the one and hus- 

 band to the other as long as God lets me live." o 

 nif a man can do this n/ter he is married (and 

 T know of a man who has done it with God's 

 help) then a man can also do it before mar- 

 riage. If I should urge each and every one of 

 you to pick out a woman full of virtues, and 

 having no faults (even if such a one could be 

 found) you could not all have her. The idea is 

 not only silly, but it is unmanly— unworthy of a 

 good man. If you are perfect yourself, then 

 you might demand perfection in your partner 

 for life. The women who are not the sweetest- 

 tempered and the strongest physically must be 

 taken care of, and you might as well do your 

 share in caring for them as to shirk the burden 

 on to the shoulders of somebody else. In fact, 

 you can not be a man in God's own image if you 

 seek for or expect the best of every thing In this 

 world of ours. 



So far T have said nothing in regard to handr 

 some women, and this phase need hardly be 

 mentioned. God seems to have so ordered 

 things that the woman who is most attractive to 

 one man is not so to another. Furthermore, 

 the simple matter of looks bn* but little to do 

 with it. Of course, a worn sin mnv make her- 

 self attractive, and vice versa, bv her manners 

 and her dress; but her behavior has very much 

 more to do with it than either. A woman who 

 has a Christlike spirit in her heart will always 

 be pleasant and attractive. If she is lacking in 

 almost every thing else this one thing may 

 atone for it all. The good and useful women 

 of the present age are not, as a rule, the hand- 

 some women. Almost any woman will be 

 handsome and congenial when you get right 

 well acquainted with her. This matter is so 

 well known that in shops and factories, in 

 offices, and in the business aflfairs of life, it has 

 been found unwise to have two of opposite sex 

 thrown together very much unless circum- 

 stances are such that it does no harm if they 

 get to.be friends and get married. This very 

 fact alone, which repeats itself day after day 

 and year after year, should convince us that 

 love so ofien goes where it is sent that we may 

 almost lay it down as a rule that almost any 

 man or woman may learn to love each other if 

 they'trv hard. I have watched this thing with 

 great interest all through a long and busy life, 

 and I am sure I am right. Sometimes where a 

 woman is suddenly taken away, leaving quite 

 a family, a sister is induced to take her place, 

 first as housekeeper, then as wife and mother. 

 Had it not been for the untimely death, the two 

 might never have thought of such a relation 



