i8yo 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



465 



lettuce ; 10 cts. for spinach and beet greens, 

 There is another thing that I am rejoicing 

 over : When every thing is exactly right, 

 how wonderfully crops may grow and ma- 

 ture I Xevy few. in my opinion, have wit- 

 nessed the possibilities of market-gardening 

 and fruit-growing. We get glimpses, how- 

 ever, occasionally, and I am getting some of 

 them now, and that makes me happy. 



©QR pejaEg. 



If ye, then, being- evil, know how lo give good 

 gifts unto your children, how much more shall 

 your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 

 that asis him'?— Luke 11 : 13. 



As it was children's day, and other mat- 

 ters occupied the attention of the Sunday- 

 school, our lesson for last Sabbath was not 

 taken up at all. But it has been taken up by 

 me during the week, in a way that I have 

 seldom before taken up any lesson. The 

 golden text, •' Ask, and it shall be given 

 you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it 

 shall be opened unto you,"' has always had 

 something startling in it to me ; and then 

 the words afterward, about a child asking 

 its father for bread, or for a fish, or for an 

 egg. Would any father give a stone or a 

 serpent or a scorpion ? Surely not. And 

 right close upon this vivid illustration 

 comes the promise of our text to-day : "■ If 

 ye, then, being evil, know how to give good 

 gifts unto your children, how much more 

 shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 

 Spirit to them that ask him ? '' Please no- 

 tice that, instead of saying that God will 

 give bread, fish, etc., or needful food, the 

 Savior says he will give us the Holy Spirit, 

 implying, in a most positive and direct man- 

 ner, that the Holy Spirit is the summing-up 

 of all things. And the more I think of it, 

 the more sure I am that the one thing need- 

 ful to us all— ves, to every reader of Glean- 

 ings, is the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit 

 is in our hearts, it takes the place of every 

 thing else. I have been so much impressed 

 with this that I have been praying with un- 

 usual earnestness for that Holy Spirit in 

 my heart, that is promised with so much 

 emphasis. You will notice that, in all of 

 Jesus' talk, in all his discourses, that seems 

 to be the great theme. He is constantly 

 exhorting us to more faith in God. Just be- 

 fore that part of the lesson which I have 

 taken up, is a most earnest exhortation to 

 importunity in prayer. This means, as I 

 take it, that we are not to get tired of pray- 

 ing, nor to lose faith. We are to plead with 

 God as we would plead with a neighbor who 

 was unneighborly. Even though he should 

 snub us, we are to have energy and perse- 

 verance, and faith enough to continue to 

 beg and entreat arni implore, even though 

 he should say, right out. that he would not 

 accede to our request. Now, we are to hold 

 on to God's promises in the same way. We 

 are to beg and beseech, no matter if we are 

 discouraged by seeing only continual bad- 

 ness in our own hearts ; and we are to contin- 

 ue to implore and plead for his Holy Spirit to 

 take the place of the badness. What has 

 been the result of my continued prayer for 



the Holy Spirit in my own heart ? Perhaps 

 you may smile at the idea of my expecting 

 an answer to such a prayer, when the pray- 

 er had been uttered for perhaps only a little 

 more than a week back. AVell, dear friends, 

 1 have become so much accustomed to see- 

 ing some answer to my prayers almost im- 

 mediately tliat I have begun to take it as a 

 matter of course — not when I pray in a half- 

 hearted fashion, as a mere form, or as a 

 sense of duty ; but when I pray in real dead 

 earnest, for any thing I feel is right and 

 proper. I have been led to expect some sort 

 of answer ; and the answer in this case has 

 been a little different from what I exaected 

 it to be. This matter of the Holy Spirit has 

 been for years rather confusing to me. 

 What does it mean ? I have often before 

 prayed for the presence of the spirit of 

 Christ Jesus in my heart ; and I do not quite 

 know what it was unless it was our recent 

 lesson that prompted me to use the words 

 of our text, and ask the Father for the Holy 

 Spirit. Well, the effect has been to give me 

 more of a spirit of charity and love toward 

 all humanity than I perhaps ever have had 

 before ; and I have also been able to see the 

 consequences of a lack of faith and a lack of 

 charity in others, in a way I have never 

 seen before. Why, it seems to me, as I 

 think of it this morning, that one of the 

 greatest troubles we have to contend with 

 is a lack of faith and a lack of charity in 

 each other. The reason why many make 

 failures in life, if I am correct, is because 

 they are so constantly thinking evil of oth- 

 er people ; and in the same line they doubt 

 God's providence and God^s promises, and 

 almost think evil of the great Father above. 

 I want this talk to be helpful to you, dear 

 friends, therefore I want to emphasize this 

 uncharitableness by some illustrations that 

 we all can enter into heartily. Uncharita- 

 bleness is a disease. It gets hold of us, poi- 

 sons our best feelings, warps our judg- 

 ment, makes us sneering and ironical ; dis- 

 torts, twists, dwarfs, and cramps the whole 

 universe round about us. Tlie most promi- 

 nent illustration I can think of in regard 

 to bee- men is the false statements in regard 

 to the adulteration of honey. The thing 

 has crept in and grown until not only our 

 periodicals but our standard works, our cy- 

 clopedias, and our medical books, have got 

 the disease, and made a shameful show of 

 the depravity of humanity where there is 

 no such depravity. What a sad thing ! 

 While Dr. Kellogg's book was on our tables 

 a few days ago, one of the office hands turn- 

 ed over to the " Adulteration of Food," and 

 there we found that foolish story repeat- 

 ed, about manufactured comb honey. Our 

 good friends of the Farm and Fireside, in a 

 lengthy editorial a few days ago, brought 

 up the whole matter of adulteration of hon- 

 ey and the adulteration of candies, and ever 

 so many other things, giving their readers 

 the impression that humanity at large is so 

 corrupt that we can hardly be sure of any 

 thing. Now, this hasty, thoughtless man- 

 ner of denouncing the great public at large 

 — of denouncing the busiiiess men oi our na- 

 tion, all comes, if I am correct, becau.se of a 

 lack of t!ie Holy Spirit; because we have 



