1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



297 



if .this were true, I should be sadly out of 

 place in undertaking to make it public. You 

 may say, "" How, then, shall community be 

 warned?" Well, I can not answer that; 

 but I do feel sure that I am not the one to 

 make public the shortcomings of some of 

 the other bee-journals. One very plain rea- 

 son why I should not undertake it is be- 

 cause the world at large will consider me 

 an interested party. For this reason alone, 

 we should forbear. Christianity demands 

 that we be generous toward rivals, even if 

 we are generous to nobody else. Beware 

 how you undertake any thing that may 

 have even the semblance of rejoicing in ini- 

 quity. Reply somethinar like this : 



" My friend, he is a brother-eaitor ; and it 

 would be in very bad taste, to say the least, 

 for me to undertake to right a matter of 

 this kind. Even if it were true that the 

 matter ought to be righted, I am not the 

 one to do it." 



There is another sort of rejoicing in ini- 

 quity, that comes in the line of collecting 

 news for our daily and weekly papers. I 

 once attended a convention or gathering of 

 a county editor and his contributors. He 

 gave them some advice in regard to the kind 

 of news to look up. Said he in substance : 



" Friends, please let us remember that the 

 public are always greedy for any thing sen- 

 sational. A case of poisoning, for instance, 

 will attract great numbers of readers who 

 have not looked at a paper for months ; and 

 we get quite a crop of new subscribers when- 

 ever any thing of this kind starts out, like 

 poison, murder, bank robbery, etc." 



You see how it is that the editor gets into 

 a way of rejoicing in iniquity. Very soon 

 his readers, also, learn to rejoice ; and if the 

 editor can not give them a dish of scandal, 

 or something in that line, once in about so 

 often, they complain that the paper is get- 

 ting stale and dull, and may be they will 

 not subscribe. How about the poor victims 

 of the poisoning, murder, and scandal? 

 How about the inmates who find a place in 

 the county jail? Oh ! that is a different 

 thing ; and 1 assure you, friends, it is a far 

 dilferent thing. As I visit the jail week 

 after week, and meet one new comer after 

 another, and take them by the hand, I al- 

 most always find the county paper spread 

 out on the table before him. He has read 

 what the cold unfeeling world has to say 

 about him, and he gets a glimpse of the es- 

 timation in which he is held, and sees how 

 people generally look down on him with 

 feelings of disgust. To a certain extent that 

 is right and proper, 1 admit. The way of 

 the transgressor is hard, and it ought to be 

 hard. I do not believe in screening trans- 

 gressors from the law, nor from public opin- 

 ion ; but, O dear friends, we should take 

 care, especially we who profess to be follow- 

 ers of Christ Jesus, that we do not in any 

 way or sense rejoice in iniquity. We may 

 rejoice that the guilty one is brought to jus- 

 tice ; but we should think of him with feel- 

 ings of sadness and sorrow, and never in 

 the line of rejoicing. 



And now, in conclusion, what is the reme- 

 dy ? What will help us to keep ourselves 

 -from rejoicing in iniquity ? Let us read a 



verse or two before and after the text I have 

 been considering. Just before the text 

 comes my favorite words, " Thinketh no 

 evil ; '■ and after the text we read, '' But re- 

 joice th in the truth." Let us rejoice, dear 

 friends, in the truth as exemplified in Christ 

 Jesus — never in iniquity. The next verse 

 reads : " Beareth all things, believeth all 

 things, hopeth all things, endureth all 

 things." What a contrast is such a spirit! 

 Well, now I want to go back to my favor- 

 ite chapter, the 6th of Luke, where we find 

 a key to it all. Jesus says, " But I say unto 

 you which hear, Love your enemies ; " and 

 further on, " Bless them that curse you, and 

 pray for them that despitefully use you." 

 If we only have the love of Christ in our 

 hearts for all our fellow-men, there will be 

 no danger of our rejoicing in any sort of ini- 

 quity. A good friend of mine once told me, 

 when 1 was a boy, the reason why I could 

 not remember, was because I did not care 

 enough about the thing I forgot. I thought 

 that was a pretty hard saying ; but I was 

 obliged to confess, after the experience of 

 later years, that he was right. And now, 

 my friends, the reason why we unconscious- 

 ly fall into a way of rejoicing in iniquity is 

 because we have not love enough in our 

 hearts for humanity round about us. There 

 is no use in evading it or in trying to dis- 

 pute it. It is the lack of Christian spirit 

 that prompts to all these things. If we 

 smile a little, or feel a little bit pleased when 

 our friends fall into iniquity, it indicates 

 very plainly that we do not love them very 

 much. But Jesus says it is not enough to 

 love our friends — we must love our enemies. 

 " What does that mean ?" does somebody 

 ask ? Why, it means that you must rejoice 

 at an opportunity of doing them good. 

 Well, if we are watching for chances to do 

 good, both to friends and enemies, how in 

 the world shall we rejoice (even the least 

 particle) when either friends or enemies get 

 into trouble ? It is the old story of loving 

 self instead of humanity. Pride comes 

 from self-love ; and self-love and its legiti- 

 mate fruit, pride, is the cause of almost all 

 the trouble — yes, even the crime — in this 

 world. No wonder that Jesus wa^ so em- 

 phatic in that 6th chapter of Luke, in those 

 wonderful verses from the 27th to the 46th, 

 exhorting people to be liberal, to be above 

 things that are selfish and little and mean. 

 He says, '' Do good and lend, hoping for 

 nothing again, and your reward shall be 

 great, and ye shall be called the children of 

 the Highest." It requires an effort to rise 

 above selfish thoughts and feelings, I know ; 

 but a reward comes right away when we do 

 it. 



A few days ago one of our boys came to me, 

 after he had got his pay (it was Saturday), 

 saying, " Mr. Root, I can't afford to work for 

 you any longer for the pay I have been get- 

 ting." 



" All right, my friend," said I, instantly. 

 " Let us be friends all the same, shall we 

 not? even though you do work for somebody 

 else." His next words were: 



'' Mr. Root, I have got another job where I 

 can get better wages than you have been 

 giving me." 



