1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



511 



has protested a great many times because I 

 insisted on getting forward in such a con- 

 spicuous place. But there are several 

 reasons why I like to be right there. In the 

 first place, I like to be near the speaker, 

 especially if, as I have said, he is also a 

 preacher. And right at the end of the seat 

 where I sit is a door that can be opened 

 without making much disturbance when 

 there is a lack of fresh air. It gets opened, 

 too, I want to tell you, even if some of the 

 elderly friends do look as cross as they dare 

 look at A. I. Boot. Now, then, friends, I 

 think we are all ready to let Bro. Gammell 

 talk to us. 



Dear Mr. Root:— I hope you will find this inclosed 

 copy about what you expected it would be. I send 

 it along:, with the prayer following- it that, if you 

 print it, it may do good to some soul waiting for 

 some such message. You will remember to send 

 me a copy or two of the magazine containing it. 

 We have been reading from your books, and proba- 

 bly no family in the land got so suddenly acquainted 

 with A. I. Root and his travels as we did in one day 

 —Monday. Your account of that Sunday afternoon 

 at Manitou reads like a chapter out of Augustine's 

 Confessions. We enjoyed journeying with you. 



Yours in Christ, S. D. Oammkll. 



Wellington, O., May 2, 1889. 



A HUMAN INSTINCT. 



Aii extract from mi address 1<> some bee-people at 

 Medina, O., April 28, 1889. 



You say the bee has instincts, but have not men 

 instincts also? What do you call that frequent and 

 most natural resort lo prayer in presence of a mo- 

 mentous crisis in the peisonal experience, if it be 

 not an instinct of the soul? 



Blind Homer declared, a thousand years before 

 Chiist, "All men have need of prayer." 1 agree 

 with him when I hear that the surgeon, about to 

 perform au operation that might be fatal, laid aside 

 his knife for a moment and fell on his knees with 

 au appeal to almighty Wisdom and Goodness that 

 his hand might be steadied and his stroke sure 

 when a fellow-being's life was involved. 



My agnostic friend, would you object if your sur- 

 geon should keep you waiting a moment before 

 some dangerous service you had asked of him, that 

 he might pray? Would you not hope that his mind 

 and soul would at least recover poise and compo- 

 sure, and his success be more certain? As for me, 

 that sort of physician would commend himself at 

 once. 



So, again, I agree with that old heathen poet I 

 have quoted, when I read of the painter, FraAn- 

 gelico, how he would not put brush to canvas, nor 

 mix the oils for his daily task, until he had prayed 

 that his soaring genius might be visited with an in- 

 spiration from the Source of all beauty and splen- 

 dor. No wonder that Kuskin can say of him, "By 

 purity of life, habitual elevation of thought, and 

 natural sweetness of disposition, he was enabled to 

 express the sacred affections upon the human coun- 

 tenance as no one ever did before or since." Is it 

 too much to claim that here we have an illustration 

 of cause and effect, that this painter's success was 

 in part dependent on his praying? 



Once more, did not the astronomer Kepler respond 

 to this instinct, when, in the midst of his discovery 

 of celestial laws, tilled with wonder and admiration 

 at his vision of stellar harmonies, he cried out: "I 



thank thee, O God, that thou hast permitted me to 

 think thine own thoughts after thee"? And you 

 and I, good friends, if we are true to our better 

 selves, standing at the star-gazer's side and listen- 

 ing while he describes to us some raging cyclone 

 in the sun, or a new volcano reddening the planet 

 Jupiter's sky, or some other heavenly wonder, it 

 we are true to our natural instincts we also shall 

 thank God that he has taught men to use their 

 lenses and tubes with such skill that they can see 

 what he is doing in the star-depths, and think his 

 thoughts after him. 



Suppose further, that it is only a tradition that 

 Washington was heard praying by himself in the 

 wintry forest at Valley Forge in a strait of general- 

 ship, and that Stonewall Jackson, leading a charge, 

 himself in the saddle, flung up his arms in moment- 

 ary prayer to God; even if these be myths they 

 reflect the thought of many minds, and the com- 

 mon expectation that such an act is becoming to 

 the time and place. It is the general acquiescence 

 in the blind bard's dictum, "All men have need of 

 prayer." 



Again, it is generally supposed that the times of 

 Franklin and Jefferson and Paine were conspicuous 

 for their skeptical tendencies. What, then, shall 

 we say of the fact that the first act of the Conti- 

 nental Congress which met at Philadelphia, Sept. C, 

 1774, was the adoption of a resolution that the Kev. 

 Mr. Duche be desired to open Congress with prayer 

 at Carpenter's Hall at nine o'clock? In this stress 

 of statesmanship, men had need of prayer. Men 

 are driven to it as a last and only resort, as ship- 

 wrecked sailors are driven to take refuge in the 

 rigging and topmasts of their sinking ship. I was 

 reminded of this the other evening when I heard 

 what I will call "The Surgeon's Story." He was in 

 charge of an army hospital in the late war, and re- 

 ceived one day a wounded soldier, a mere boy, shot 

 nearly to death. Day after day the doctor sought 

 to reveal his dangerous condition to the lad; but 

 his light laughing spirits would not take the plain 

 hints and intimations of his medical attendant; and 

 yet he was slowly, surely dying. One morning the 

 doctor said, " My boy, I've tried to tell you that you 

 could not survive this wound; that you must cer- 

 tainly die; but you wouldn't believe me; now I tell 

 you plainly, that before noon you will be dead." 



Again that stolid stare, that imperturbable spirit, 

 that unresponsive mind, and the surgeon went 

 away. But in an hour he was hastily called, and 

 the now conscious and aroused boy broke out, " O 

 surgeon ! I know what you mean now. I must die; 

 but what shall I do? I'm not prepared to die. O 

 doctor! I can't die. My father was a minister, and 

 my mother taught me to pray; but I've been a wild, 

 bad boy. O surgeon! what shall I do?" And the 

 good surgeon felt himself but poorly qualified, in 

 his little knowledge of Christ, to give this dying boy 

 an adequate reply, and could only stammer, with 

 tear-fllled eyes, " Your mother's religion, my boy; 

 your mother's religion." What else have you to 

 offer, my agnostic friend? What else but this? It 

 is the natural cry of the soul in mighty emergen- 

 cies, face to face with awful duties, face to face 

 with the impenetrable mystery of death and eterni- 

 ty. It is the cry of the soul lifted up in prayer— the 

 prayer learned, it may be, at mother's knee— to the 

 eternal Goodness. 



The bee, by instinct, knows where to find its hon- 

 ey and how to build its cell. Shall not the imperial 



