322 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



tue I possessed naturally, to a certain extent, 

 and had never cost me any struggles or de- 

 privations. By my side, sat a young widow; 

 I was a good moral man , a very good moral 

 man ; in fact, I often took great pride in 

 telling how I treated every body as I would 

 be done by. How about the widow? I will 

 tell you. As soon as I gathered from her 

 conversation that she was a widow, and 

 alone, I scrupulously concealed the fact that 

 I was a married man, but devoted the whole 

 beautiful autumn day to making myself 

 agreeable to her. As the roads were bad, I 

 got out and gathered flowers and winter- 

 greens for her, brought her water when she 

 was thirsty, and, by the time we reached our 

 destination, if she did not feel that I 

 esteemed her above all women, it was not 

 because I had not tried to make her feel so. 

 Had it been my wife, instead of an utter 

 stranger, what would have been my behav- 

 ior? I thank thee, O my Savior, I thank thee 

 that those days are passed and gone ; that 

 that old, wicked self lias been made over by 

 thy love. I thank thee, too, dear Jesus, that 

 I can feel a thrill of joy now, when I think 

 that no other woman on earth could now 

 give me the pleasure during such a trip, as 

 the dear wife thou gavest me. 



I have told you of the change in my life, — 

 how I was cleansed from this weakness, al- 

 most as by a miracle, and was changed, as it 

 were, in an hour. There ft, however, one 

 part I did not tell, or, at least, but imperfect- 

 ly. As years passed on after my conversion, 

 I was somewhat startled to feel that God's 

 purpose seemed to be, after I had grown 

 strong and firmly rooted in my faith in him, 

 to try me again with temptation. Please, 

 dear reader, do not, at this point, form any 

 hasty conclusions of your own, or accuse me 

 of inconsistency, but take just what I say, 

 and no more. My especial weakness, in 

 years past, seemed to be new faces ; not al- 

 ways new ones exactly, but faces I had not 

 heretofore noticed, or perhaps those I had 

 not happened to get acquainted with. It 

 was just about 4 years after my conversion, 

 when I began to be aware that old tempta- 

 tions were getting a foothold; that is hardly 

 the word either, for they got no foothold, 

 unless it was in my thoughts, for I can 

 scarcely remember an action that could well 

 be called a wrong one. Perhaps, in passing 

 along the street, my eye would unconsciously 

 catch a new face, one a little different from 

 any I had ever seen before, and afterwards, 

 at my work, this face would suddenly rise 

 up before me ; before I knew it, when among 

 people, I would be looking for that face 

 again. If, by accident, I got acquainted 

 with the owner, by and by, I would begin to 

 look for that new acquaintance. Here con- 

 science began to hold up a warning ; for I 

 knew it was in just that way that I had 

 started wrong in years before. Alone, by 

 myself, I knelt in prayer, and asked God to 

 keep me from such a fate as going back to 

 anything remotely approaching the old life. 

 I was startled by seeing the face before me 

 even while I knelt in prayer. I promised 

 God to root out this new phase of temptation, 

 if it took all my time and all my strength to 

 do it. When I passed that person, I turned 



my head the other way, or took another 

 street. If my thoughts turned that way, 

 and I could not master them otherwise, I 

 left my work and went off. Here a queer 

 feature presented itself. I knew death and 

 ruin were before me. 1 knew, if I gave way 

 to this temptation, I should lose my love for 

 the Bible and the prayer meetings ; and, in 

 fact, I had begun even already to feel the 

 Bible a restraint. How quickly yielding in 

 the very least to temptation weakens our 

 faith in God, and deadens his love in our 

 hearts. In spite of all this, and knowing all 

 this, a strong disposition grew up to trifle 

 with what, in one phase, seemed a new phe- 

 nomenon. I knew it was Satan, and I clear- 

 ly saw the cloven hoof which he was attemp- 

 ting to hide ; but an almost ungovernable 

 curiosity came up, to watch him, and see 

 how he worked such things. You know 

 what a passion I have for exploring new 

 fields ; I presume my curiosity, too, is rather 

 more than average. Well, after passing 

 this individual, say on the other side of the 

 street, and keeping my thoughts and eyes in 

 some other direction, as well as I could, un- 

 til I almost began to feel a thrill of victory, 

 by some strange perversion, I would turn 

 and look back. What inconsistency ! How 

 could I kneel in prayer, and ask God to help 

 me, after conduct like this? I fought and 

 prayed the harder, but Satan worked harder, 

 too. That great wall that God Almighty 

 had raised up was beginning to shake. Sa- 

 tan was beginning to scream in my ears that 

 even God and the Bible could not save me. 

 To wind up with, he, too, massed all his 

 powers for a grand finale. In turning a 

 corner suddenly, I came full upon the person 

 I had sought to avoid, and received a pleas- 

 ant good natured smile, as a matter of 

 course. What a simple trifling matter! A 

 common place everyday occurrence. What 

 do you suppose Satan made of it? In that 

 smile, occupying scarcely a second, he had 

 managed to weave in, as it seemed to me, 

 more beauty and loveliness than the world 

 contained outside, and that face seemed so 

 much the centre of the universe that it 

 seemed as if it were no more than justice 

 that I should bow down and worship it, for- 

 getting God and every thing else. 



"Why, you poor, miserable fool, you had 

 gone crazy," I can imagine some of my 

 friends saying. I agree with you, my 

 friends, I had gone crazy for about a second, 

 and I was in danger of going crazy for the 

 rest of my life. While I am writing, the fol- 

 lowing verses occur to me : 



And the devil said unto him, All this power will I 

 give thee, and the glory of them: for that is deliv- 

 ered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. 



If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be 

 thine.— Luke iv. 6, "J. 



Now read the reply that Jesus made : 



And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee 

 behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou Shalt 

 worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou 

 serve.— Luke iv. 8. 



And the first commandment: 



I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee 

 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bond- 

 re. 



Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 



il-V 



