olli 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



JrxE 



soul know where to find its joy, and how to build 

 for itself an eternal mansion, abiding instant in 

 prayer, following the supremest instinct of the Kod- 

 like soul? 



You are right, brother Gammell ; I am 

 sure you are right. When God endowed the 

 bee and the lower forms of animal life with 

 unerring instinct, ho surely did not forget 

 man, who stands at the very head of the 

 animated universe ; and he surely does not 

 leave him in darkness, and alone, when 

 these momentous crises come, as they do 

 most surely come to us all, sooner or later. 



Vea, though I walk through the valley of the 

 shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art 

 with me: thv rod and thy staff they comfort me. 

 — Psat.M 33 : 4. 



Thousands of times have I been comfort- 

 ed, and made to feel safe and at ease — yes, 

 thousands of times has he helped me to be 

 cool and collected when important issues 

 were at stake. Dear brother, since you 

 gave us that sermon, and since the fore- 

 going was penned, one of the greatest calam- 

 ities has come to us as a people, that ever 

 tried men's souls since the settlement of 

 America. Over ten thousand people were 

 hurried to sudden death within- one short 

 hour. No doubt at such a time there was 

 much praying ; in fact, we have many rec- 

 ords of the prayers that were offered up. 

 And some of the newspapeis have been in 

 such haste to tear down the Christian relig- 

 ion that they have boldly declared that God 

 did not hear or answer in this time of trou- 

 ble. One newspaper even seems to delight 

 in telling of certain people who discarded 

 their Bibles, and refused to hear a word 

 from their pastors, because God permitted 

 such a thing to happen. Perhaps I am 

 touching upon a subject too deep for me. 

 Very likely I can not tell how I should be- 

 have myself under a similar trial ; but, dear 

 friends, if there be any among you who 

 have been troubled by these newspaper ac- 

 counts, please remember that God has nev- 

 er promised to exempt even his devoted fol- 

 lowers from sickness and suffering, from ac- 

 cident and death He has, however, prom- 

 ised to give us grace to meet all these things 

 with courage and calmness and trust. Je- 

 sus breathed, with his dying breath, '■ Fa- 

 ther, into thy hands I commend iny spirit." 

 Before the ordeal came, he did once pray 

 that the cup might pass from him ; but aft- 

 er he had risen above this human weakness, 

 he met suffering and death in such a way 

 as may well be an example for all man- 

 kind Should I be overtaken by any such 

 calamity, I hope and pray that I may have 

 grace to pray as did the S >n of God. When 

 the question first came to me, I at once de- 

 cided that those who prayt d simply for long- 

 er life (or even that a loved member of 

 their household might be spared a fate that 

 seemed to have come to all round about 

 them), had a wrong conception of God's 

 promises ; and in thinking over the mat- 

 ter, and mentally going over the Scriptures, 

 the answer seemed to come to me, that in 

 no place in the Bible have we the assurance 

 that our lives shall be prolonged, in answer 

 to prayer. The sun shines on the just and 

 on the unjust ; and sickness and accident 



and death also come to the just and to the 

 unjust. It is our duty to save our lives, 

 where we can consistently, for the good of 

 others. It is our duty to* be careful of hu- 

 man life ; but all of our prayers should take 

 in the thought, whether expressed in words 

 or not, " Nevertheless, not my will, but 

 thine, be done." He who starts out to be a 

 follower of Christ Jesus must not expect 

 that, because he does so, he is to be exempt 

 from the ills of this life ; in fact, it does 

 sometimes seem as if Christians were called 

 upon to suffer and bear even more than the 

 people of the world. The Ashtabula disas- 

 ter of years ago seemed to indicate very 

 plainly that God does not propose to save 

 even his devoted followers from the effects of 

 a tenible accident. In the case before us 

 it seems to have been rather the acts of 

 man than the acts of God ; but when we 

 come to earthquakes, cj clones, cloud-bursts, 

 and the like, we are forced to conclude that 

 God has some very wise and good purpose 

 in permitting these sad things. It may be 

 that we need to be reminded very often of 

 the uncertainty of life, and of the fact that 

 it is futile for us to propose putting off the 

 time of reform until death shall be near. 1 

 do believe that it is well for us to know that 

 death may come at any hour, unheralded 

 and without warning. Our whole nation once 

 prayed that the life of a president might be 

 spared. It seemed to us that it must be for 

 the best that he should be spared. His life 

 was not spared, however, and I feel certain 

 that none but a, poor mistaken Christian 

 lost faith in God simply because our presi- 

 dent died. Suppose, by way of illustration, 

 we should quarrel with the great Creator be- 

 cause his plans were not in accordance with 

 our poor weak human judgment. If we 

 should decide that this world or this uni- 

 verse is a poor one, and badly managed, 

 how much can we do toward finding a bet- 

 ter one V Jesus once asked his poor hum- 

 ble followers if they too were going to be 

 offended, and turn away from him. Peter, 

 by a sort of instinct, such as our brother 

 has mentioned, rushed to the truth of the 

 matter at once when he said, "Lord, to 

 whom shall we go V thou hast the words of 

 eternal life." Now, then, if we shut up or 

 throw away our Bibles, what then V Where 

 shall we find comfort ? Is there any thing 

 else that will sustain and cheer us in the 

 dying hour V We are told that a mother, at 

 the last crisis, put her children, one by one, 

 on floating fragments — fragments that 

 would buoy them up, probably, but would 

 not sustain her own weight ; then with a 

 prayer to God, and with encouraging words 

 to the children that God would take care of 

 them in the flood and in the darkness, she 

 set them adrift. They were never found 

 alive. Did the poor, almost distracted 

 mother make a mistake in commending 

 them to Him whoholdeth the winds and the 

 waves in the hollow of his hand, and who 

 heareth even the ravens when they cry ? 

 She might have made a mistake in assur- 

 ing them that they would be spared from 

 death, but surely not in trusting even her 

 little four-year-old girl to the tender mer- 

 cies of the Father above, when the little one 



