1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



43 



However you may decide, I believe from the tone 

 of your articles, you will nut be offended by the sug- 

 gestion of— A Friend. 



Delavan, Wis., Dec. 20, 18T9. 



To be sure, I am not offended, my friend, 

 but my faith in Christian people is greater 

 than you think perhaps. Of course, I did 

 not mean, nor did friend Alley, those who 

 wished to pay their debts and could not. but 

 the class who make professions of Christian- 

 ity on purpose to cheat their fellow men. I 

 do not think Gleanings will ever have to 

 be enlarged to give the names of such, nor 

 have I the remotest idea that I shall ever 

 have occasion to show up one who fears God. 

 The man or boy who writes a square, honest, 

 candid letter, when appealed to in such a 

 matter, God will take care of, by raising up 

 friends to his aid, wherever he may be plac- 

 ed. The matter came up at our noon-day 

 service. Mr. Gray said he had never, in all 

 his business experience which has extended 

 to several states of our Union, known a man 

 distressed for a debt, where he was honestly 

 and faithfully doing all he could. Although 

 I have no money to spare, show me a man 

 or boy. girl or woman, who has the fear of 

 the Lord in his heart, and who will go right 

 along letting his actions speak as well as his 

 Avords, and i will hand over the money that 

 they may want, without a moment's hesita- 

 tion. 



This is a pretty strong assertion, my 

 friends, I know ; but, in every case that has 

 come under my notice, where there was 

 trouble and want, I could, by a very few 

 questions, find some point where the individ- 

 ual refused to obey, and to trust himself and 

 his affairs entirely in God's hands, as com- 

 manded in the word of God. From my 

 stack of letters, here is one right to the point. 



Brother Root:— A few years ago, T found myself 

 without employment, and a thousand dollars below 

 par, with a big family on my hands; but I promised 

 the Lord I would be faithful, and work at the first 

 job that turned to my hand. Well, it was a job of 

 white-washing; and I have never seen the time 

 since that I have not had all I could do, and I never 

 had a man come to me for work but what I could 

 find something for him to do. I have given empl. >y- 

 ment to a doz. or more of hands, but among all of 

 them, I have not found one to take ca>-e of my bees. 

 What shall I do? Geo. M Kellogg. 



Pleasant Hill. Cass Co., Mo., Nov. It, 1879. 



There, boys, do you see the point V If our 

 friend only received 2oc. a day, for that white- 

 washing, he would have been cheerful about 

 it, for he was working for God, and God knew 

 what wages was best for him. This trust 

 and faith is what is wanted. Our friend is 

 now a market gardener, employing many 

 hands, and the poor fellow is in trouble now, 

 because God, after having found him faith- 

 ful in a few things, has made him ruler over 

 so many that he can't get any body to take 

 care of a part of them. Keep up your faith, 

 friend K.; kneel down and ask God to send 

 you a bee-keeper, and you will lind one, with- 

 out a particle of doubt. Perhaps you will 

 find him where, of all the places on earth, 

 you least expected him; for the dear Saviour 

 seems to delight in showing us the overlooked 

 blessings that have always existed almost 

 under our very noses. 



Do you think I speak positively of that 

 of which I am not certain V Last summer, a 

 young man who is working his way through 



college wrote me that, while kneeling in 

 prayer, God had directed him to come to me. 

 Without hardly taking time to consider the 

 matter, I told him to come along, and, after 

 he got to Medina, I had forgotten about it, 

 and came very near telling him I could not 

 possibly make a place for him. I was almost 

 out of health at the time, and was so worried 

 trying to scrape up brains enough to make a 

 good index to my A B C book, which was 

 just completed, that I felt as if I hadn't a 

 minute to look after anybody, especially a 

 new comer. After looking up the letter to 

 see what I had told the clerks to write him, I 

 finally had faith enough to ask him to go 

 with me to prayer meeting, and to feel that 

 God would likely take care of us both. On 

 my knees in the meeting, I asked God to 

 show me what I could do for this new friend. 

 To my surprise, the answer burst upon me 

 that I could give him the index to compile, 

 that he might take care of me, and ease my 

 failing health, instead of my taking care of 

 him. I found, next morning, that he was 

 a skillful bee-keeper, as well as a scholar, 

 and he took hold of the book, examined it in 

 all its parts and phases, in a way that none 

 but an outsider could do, and gave us the 

 beautiful and comprehensive index which 

 many of you have seen. Now, this is not 

 half of it. 



At the time I speak of, there was a poor 

 fellow in jail, with whom I seemed to make 

 little headway. In fact, I was discouraged 

 with him, almost at the outset. Well, this 

 young student went with me to the jail Sun- 

 day morning, and then, before I knew it, he 

 was going into the jail evenings; and, pretty 

 soon, he had carried this poor ignorant broth- 

 er of his a slate and pencil, and later, a writ- 

 ing book and pens and ink. During the 

 summer, he not only taught him to read a d 

 write, but he taught him of the Saviour's 

 love, and from that humble stone room, the 

 first letter the boy ever wrote in his life went 

 home to his mother and sisters in Canada, 

 exhorting them to become followers of the 

 Saviour, and telling them of his new life. 



Up, up, up, came "Chris," for that was 

 what we used to call him, and when God 

 opened his prison doors, and sent him out a 

 free man, as he has done others before him, 

 of whom I have told you. and as God always 

 does, when it is best for them to be out, he 

 was. in truth, a new man, and really born 

 again. My friends, imagine those two. the 

 teacher and the pupil, bending over their 

 books in that little room,— the one happy, 

 because he knew he was doing the will of 

 Him who said. " I was sick and in prison, 

 and ye visited me,'' the other, happy because 

 he was forgetting his oaths and curses, his 

 vile and filthy stories among his former as- 

 sociates (he had been a sailor on the lakes), 

 anil because he was beginning to drink of 

 the pure waters of everlasting life. Do you 

 wonder that it seems to me as if angels must 

 have been hovering over them at such times V 

 Chris has gone back to Canada, but God is 

 with him. Mr. House, for it was he, has 

 gone back to his college work, that he may 

 be fitted for a missionary to Africa. Do you 

 know how I thank God for the glimpses I 

 had of the lives of those two V How I would 



