502 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



half of the price of an instrument in advertis- 

 ing. The organ is now in use every day ; 

 and as the engine stops at just ten minutes 

 of noon, the org in calls all hands around it, 

 myself included. Do you wonder that I 

 sometimes look on as though I were but a 

 passenger too, and that God was managing 

 this business. Do not the events seem to 

 say,' 



"My child, you have shown your zeal in 

 trying to do my will, but how I wish you to 

 stand aside and let me take care of these 

 boys and girls a little, and show you that 

 your prayers have not been in vain." 



Suppose I had beei stubborn and dom- 

 ineering, and imagined it was my duty to go 

 ahead, since I had once started, even if I did 

 smash up my business. 



Ye shall not need to fight in fhis battle: set your- 

 selves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the 

 Lord with you. O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, 

 nor he dismayed: tomorrow go out against them: 

 for the Lord will be with you.— II Chronicles, xx. 17. 



To show you the effect of this service on 

 all of us, even the '•'strangers" that may be 

 "within our gates", I will mention the fol- 

 lowing incident : 



When we lost so many letters by the mail 

 depredations, one of the government detect- 

 ives frequently called on me. He had a few 

 bee hives, and, on that account, he could go 

 around among the hands and take a look at 

 the clerks, for the evidence pointed out that 

 the guilty one was very near Medina, if not 

 in Medina, and possible among my own 

 clerks. He watched the boy who went to 

 the office daily with his basket, and the clerk 

 who opened the letters, etc. When I suggest- 

 ed that this or that one was an earnest 

 Christian, he did not seem to think that 

 made a great deal of difference ; and after 

 we had had some talk in the matter, he final- 

 ly said that he found the thieves among all 

 classes, even deacons in the church had been 

 known to rob the mails, and use the money 

 to build meeting houses, etc. I felt sure 

 such cases must be rare, but he, in his busi- 

 ness, knew a great deal better than I, and 

 as I pondered the matter silently, praying 

 that God would give him a better view of 

 Christians and Christianity, since I seemed 

 unable to do so, the engine stopped suddenly. 

 If God stopped the engine in answer to my 

 prayer I did not know it, but thought it 

 must be noon, as did the girls in their offices 

 and rooms. Our conversation was in my priv- 

 ate office, and as we were not through, I at 

 first thought I would leave him there until I 

 was through with the exercises. He was a 

 skeptic, and would not care to come to pray- 

 ers. Do you see how hopelessly I was blund- 

 ering, and how small was my faith, when 

 God had stopped the engine just on purpose, 

 to help me V I finally did think best to ask him 

 to join us and gave him a book of the "Gos- 

 pel Hymns". It was 20 minutes to 12, in- 

 stead of 10, and the engineer had been oblig- 

 ed to stop to lace a belt, or something of that 

 kind. As the girls had commenced singing, 

 it was a little embarrassing, but I finally de- 

 cided, we would sing several pieces to till up 

 the interval. Even then, I could see no prov- 

 idence in it, and after" the service (which, 

 in my want of faith, I kept thinking must 

 have been annoying to him)j I asked him to 



go home with me to dinner. As soon as we 

 were in the open air, he commenced, to my 

 surprise, making all sorts of inquiries about 

 that little "meeting". 



"Why, Mr. Root, I should be a good man, 

 if I could hear such hymns as those every 

 day. I know those girls are honest. Who got 

 up that 'prayer meeting?' " 



Some how, every body persists in calling it 

 a "prayer meeting". 



"It was one of the girls you saw, who got 

 up the meeting, and it was as unexpected to 

 me, as to you." 



"Is she a church member?" 



"No." 



"Why, how did it come ?" 



"I do not know." 



"Does not the Bible say something, some- 

 where, about the weak things of this earth 

 confounding the mighty ?" 



"Yes; 'And God hath chosen the weak 

 things of the world to confound the things 

 which are mighty'. " I Cor. I. 27. 



"Mr. Root, I do believe in God, and I be- 

 lieve in religion ; at least, I believe in the 

 kind you have there among your boys and 

 girls. Why, what a splendid thing that is 

 among a lot of factory hands." 



When the thief was caught, he was not a 

 boy that belonged to the Sabbath schools, by 

 any means, but I found there was a saloon 

 next door to the post office, and he told me 

 that there was where the greater part, or all, 

 of your money and mine went to. Very 

 likely that saloon keeper taught that boy 

 how to drink and smoke, and it was that 

 powerful craving for drink and tobacco, that 

 made him rob you and me of our hard earn- 

 ings. The boy is going to the penitentiary, 

 but the saloon keeper goes on with his busi- 

 ness, of getting more boys ready for the 

 penitentiary, and my detective friend told 

 me yesterday, that our Ohio penitentiary 

 was so full, they hadn't any more room to 

 put our boys, and so this one is breathing his 

 life out in a narrow iron cage so dark, that 

 he cannot even see to read the little Bible I 

 gave him. My friend Fred, who is now 

 bright, happy, honest, and free (thank God), 

 once told me that confining a young man 

 even in comfortable quarters and leaving 

 him month after month with nothing to do, 

 was more terrible than any human being 

 could imagine, who had not tried it. 



Ye fathers and mothers, in God's name I 

 ask you, shall these saloons go on with their 

 business, without one word of remonstrance 

 from you and me? 



Towards the first of July, there was talk 

 again among the hands, that I was going to 

 turn off all that did not stop using tobacco, 

 etc. I told them I had made no decision, as 

 to what I should do, when the 3 months 

 were up. But you have promised, never to 

 bring the matter up again, with the old 

 hands, said they. I told them I certainly 

 had not. It was finally referred to the one 

 who went around with the paper to get them 

 to come up to the noon day service. She in- 

 sisted that I certainly did tell her I would 

 throw aside the paper, forever, with the old 

 hands, if they would come to the service 

 every noon. 



Now I had no thought of binding myself, 



