524 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI.TURE. 



June 15 



What doest thou here, Elijah?— I. Kings 19:13. 



I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the 

 ■world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. 

 — John 17: 15. 



I becotne discouraged sometimes. Several 

 times of late I have had a longing to go away 

 off to some other country. Yes, I have been 

 so disheartened and discouraged that I have 

 felt like saying to some of the people (I was 

 going to say good people, but I guess I do not 

 mean that), " If you are absolutely determin- 

 ed to have whisky, tobacco, gambling, and 

 drinks all about you on every corner, I think 

 we who love righteousness and hate iniquity 

 had better go away by ourselves, and let you 

 have things as you like them, without hin- 

 drance or restraint." And then I reflect that 

 such things have been tried. People have 

 gone off by themselves. They have put fences 

 up, so to speak, to keep out the evil. But 

 Satan gets through or over any fence that was 

 ever constructed. The Christian people at 

 Lakeside had quite a community where they 

 could go and rest on the shore of the lake in 

 their summer cottages ; and that whole ground 

 was under such strict police regulations that 

 there was no profanity, no tobacco. They 

 used to say with pride that no one could buy 

 a cigar on the grounds. But pretty soon a 

 fellow opened a cigar-stand on the other side 

 of the fence, and did quite a trade by passing 

 the cigars through the pickets and taking back 

 the dimes and nickels. There was somebody 

 who wanted cigars, even in that Christian in- 

 stitution. I do not know how it is going to be 

 this summer, whether they will keep out the 

 tobacco and such things or not. I hope they 

 will not be weary in battling for purity and 

 temperance, and I for one shall be glad to 

 help them. Our own place of business is in 

 many respects a model establishment. Peo- 

 ple come here and look us over, and some- 

 times they thank God for the privilege of even 

 looking over a place managed with so much 

 system and thoughtfulness for the wants and 

 comforts of the employees. And yet some- 

 times I become impatient because things do 

 not goon everywhere exactly after 7«j(/ fashion. 

 May be I had better say after the old fashion. 

 I hope the younger members of the firm will 

 forgive me for just hinting at some of the 

 things that are not just as / would have them 

 — mind you, I do noisay just as they ought to 

 be, but because they are, perhaps, not just ac- 

 cording to viy notions. 



It is customary of late for most periodicals 

 to club with others ; and publishers of maga- 

 zines have been striving to outdo each other 

 in their liberal efforts. Well, once when I 

 came home from my travels I found the boys 

 had remodeled the list of periodicals I recom- 

 mended — yes, they had made startling offers 

 to include some other periodical for the price 

 of our own, or a little more than that. I re- 

 monstrated something like this : 



"But, look here, boys; you have given 

 great prominence to some periodicals that I 

 do not consider at all standard, and some that 

 I would hardly dare to recommend as home 

 papers. Again, you have left out from your 

 list entirely some of the agricultural papers 

 that I read and endorse from beginning to end, 

 week after week." 



The reply was that they had made big offers 

 on A, B, and C because they furnish them to 

 us for premiums at an exceedingly low price, 

 and that my favorite periodical was left out 

 because it cost so much money. 



There, friends, you see one of the prevail- 

 ing errors of the present age. Even in the 

 agricultural papers the cheapest is not the best 

 by any means. No doubt merchants adver- 

 tise certain goods extensively because they 

 buy them cheap and can offer them at a low 

 price and still make money ^ and so the regu- 

 lar standard goods (the best goods) are left in 

 the background. 



" But," said one of the boys, " what is your 

 objection to this periodical ? " 



Then he unfolded its pages, showing me the 

 pictures, clear print, etc. 



"Is not that a nice paper? and is it not 

 worthy of all the praise we give it ? " 



" Yes, boys, it is a nic&lookijtg paper ; but 

 it contains articles on the cultivation of tobac- 

 co — tells young farmers all how to do it, so as 

 to make money, without a single word in its 

 pa^es in regard to the terrible evils that to- 

 bacco is bringing on us." 



If I remember correctly, some of the boys 

 laughed ; but I think one of them said some- 

 thing like this : 



" Why, father, you must not be so critical. 

 It is a part of the business of an agricultural 

 paper to tell how to grow all kinds of crops ; 

 and there is a great difference of opinion, you 

 know, in regard to the use of tobacco." * 



I presume he might have added, truthfully, 

 that the majority of people — at least the ma- 

 jority of men, believe in tobacco, both in prac- 

 tice and theory. 



"But, \)0^%, you don't, any of you, believe 

 in tobacco, either in practice or theory ; and 

 the paper I should have put at the head of the 

 list, especially so far as recommending it as a 

 home paper, you have not mentioned at all, 

 just because it costs a little more money than 

 the other." Now, I am going to speak right 

 out in meeting just here, and say that the Ru- 

 ral New - Yorker will have nothing to do with 

 the cultivation of tobacco; and, not only that, 

 puts in wholesome cautions against things of 

 this kind in almost every issue. I may be 

 wrong in saying that the Rural is the only ag- 

 ricultural periodical that takes this stand. 

 The Philadelphia Farm Journal comes pretty 

 rear it, and it is one of the cheap papers too. 

 May God reward the publishers of these home 

 papers, even if the farming people of our 

 broad land do forget sometimes to give them 



* At one time when this matter was up, one of the 

 firm said, '' Here is another thing : This paperyou ob- 

 ject to gives us more inquiries in response to our ad- 

 vertisement than any other one on the list." Then 

 he picked up a record-book on a desk near by, that 

 showed just how many inquiries each one of our ad- 

 vertising periodicals had brought in. 



