346 



GI^EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



J)(lYgEIiF MB PY ]\[EmpB0^g. 



Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 

 mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they 

 shall be one flesh.— (Jen. 3 : 24. 



Pe fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 

 —Gen. 1 : 28. 



8urro8E some hideous giant should come 

 on mankind, and kill them all off ; what 

 sort of a world would this be compared with 

 what it is just now? Or, suppose that cy- 

 clones, tornadoes, and earthquakes should 

 destroy and kill off every vesiige of the hu- 

 man family. God does permit and has per- 

 mitted at times a wholesale destruction of 

 human life ; but it seems evident, without 

 going to the Holy Scriptures, that the in- 

 tention of the Creator of the universe can 

 not be to destroy human life utterly. Man, 

 especially at the present time, occupies too 

 prominent a position in the universe for us 

 to cherish a thought that he may ultimate- 

 ly become extinct. Whether one turns to 

 the Mosaic record, or whether he takes a 

 common-sense view of the present state of 

 affairs, he must, if honest, admit that the 

 evidences are too plain and unmistakable 

 that the universe was created for man and 

 not man for the universe. What has this 

 to do with our text? Why, this much: 

 Some of the friends who read Gleaxixgs, 

 evidently seem to think (in practice at least, 

 if not in theory), that the extinction of the 

 whole human family would be no very great 

 calamity. Yes, they go even further than 

 this. If this great giant should kill all the 

 best of the people, and leave the bad, we 

 might complain of him more than if he took 

 the good and bad alike, indiscriminately. 

 Or if the cyclones and tornadoes should de- 

 stroy only the good, hard-working people, 

 and skip over the vicious and criminal 

 classes, that would be harder to understand 

 than entire extinction. A good deal has 

 been said about suicides lately ; and we 

 have talked about it as if it were a malady 

 or disease— a terrible one too, I admit. 

 Why did God so create us that it were pos- 

 sible to commit self-murder ? Well, I have 

 been conversant with quite a number who 

 were bent on suicide. I have talked with 

 them ; and I have found quite a few people 

 who declare that life is no boon nor bless- 

 ing; and sometimes fairly good people are 

 wicked enough to say, "I wish I were 

 dead ; " but I never yet found a man or 

 woman so bad as to say right out that they 

 would kill themselves and everybody else if 

 they had an opportunity. I never yet talk- 

 ed with any one who meditated or longed 

 for universal suicide— the entire extinction 

 of humanity in general; yet I have seen 

 people who in practice seemed to be quite 

 indifferent to the fact that they were set- 

 ting an example recommending the total ex- 

 tinction of the whole human family, or, as 

 I put it just a little back, the destruction of 

 —shall we say the better class of people ? 

 My friend, perhaps you think I am over- 

 drawing things this morning. Let us see 

 whether I am. 



In our text we have the plain command 

 that a man shall leave his father and his 

 mother, and cleave unto his wife. Now, 



suppose those of you who are, say, 25 years 

 of age or more, are still living with father 

 or mother, or, if you choose, living by your- 

 selves, in some other way, without any 

 thought or intention of obeying this Bible 

 precept. What would be the result ? If no 

 one should get married, it would take only 

 a little more than 100 years to bring about 

 this universal suicide I have been speaking^ 

 of. I am taking it for granted that the 

 readers of Gleanings average a little bet- 

 ter than that portion of humanity who do 

 not read it, or perhaps who do not read any 

 thing at all. Are Christian people, you ask, 

 more likely to get married than other peo- 

 ple ? I think they are. Look about you, 

 and see if it is not so. It is true, there are a 

 good many Christians who do not get mar- 

 ried ; but I think they are, as a rule, doing 

 wrong. They are omitting one of the first 

 commands spoken to the human family at 

 the very beginning of the human race ; and 

 without any Bible about it, they are encour- 

 aging, by example, wholesale suicide, or, if 

 you choose, general suicide. Should every- 

 body get married? If you want my opin- 

 ion, dear friends, I think that, as a rule, 

 everybody should get married. I am now 

 speaking chiefly to my own sex ; but I shall 

 have something to say to the other sex be- 

 fore I get through. I propose in this talk 

 this morning to quote a good deal from my 

 son Ernest. I do not mean that I shall 

 quote from his writings, but from his words 

 and admonitions that have been dropped 

 now and then for 25 years or more. Shortly 

 after he left college we were discussing a 

 candidate for a very prominent office in the 

 affairs of our nation. He surprised me by 

 saying that it was a little against him that 

 he was not a married man. I looked up a 

 little in surprise, and replied : 



" Do you mean that to be taken as a uni- 

 versal rule — that is. are we to take it for 

 granted, that, other things being equal, a 

 man who is married is a better moral man 

 than one who is not ? " 



He replied very decidedly that such was 

 the teaching of the college professors, at 

 any rate. I have thought of it a good many 

 times since, and I believe that his teachings 

 at school were about right. My good friend^ 

 if you are of a marriageable age, and are 

 still standing before the world as unmar- 

 ried, your example is a bad one. In looking- 

 after the welfare of the young men who are 

 at work for me, and who have been working 

 for me for toward a quarter of a century, I 

 have been led to rejoice when I knew they 

 were getting married. When the women- 

 folks of our establishment get married, it 

 generally means giving up their places ; but 

 notwithstanding that, I am, as a rule, glad 

 to know they are getting married. Of 

 course, I must put my own convenience out 

 of the question when I say this. I do not 

 feel, however, that I can with as much con- 

 sistency advise women to get married, gen- 

 erally, as men. One reason is, they some- 

 times make mistakes, and marry men who 

 are not worthy of them. But even this state 

 of affairs sometimes — yes, oftentimes, — 

 turns out well if only one of the two has 

 the love of Christ Jesus in the heart. 



