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G^LEANI:^^GS iK bee culture. 



105 



And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 

 brother's eye, but considorest not the beam that is 

 in thine own eye?— Matt. T: 3. 



TT was at the close of the Sunday evening 

 M prayer - meeting, and my sister was 

 jt speaking about the revival lield at one 

 ■^ of tlie other cluuches in our town. She 

 said the pastor of that church had won- 

 dered 1 liad not been present, for lie suppos- 

 ed, from what he knew of me, I ct)uld not 

 stay away when a revival was going forward. 

 As it was near church time 1 passed along 

 witli the crowd and was soon seated right in 

 front of the pulpit, the usher probably 

 thinking that there was where I ought to be. 

 The revival work was conducted by a lady. 

 I had heard her speak once before on tem- 

 perance, and I was not very favorably im- 

 pressed with her abilities. As an illustra- 

 tion, among other points she made she call- 

 ed attention to the fact that farmers have 

 much more trouble in getting their corn to 

 come up in the spring, of late years, than 

 they used to have. I am well aware of this, 

 and our agricultural papers have discussed 

 it. But the speaker gave as a reason , that 

 it was (rod's judgment on the farmers for 

 selling their corn to the distillers. As she 

 stood l)efore me that evening my mind re- 

 verted to the incident above, and 1 could not 

 or did not have very much faith in her abil- 

 ity to lead souls to the cross. As I looked 

 about among the people that were gathered 

 before me, without hardly knowing it I was 

 encouraging a disposition to criticise the 

 friends and neighbors around me in the 

 same way. The large church soon became 

 very much crowded, and seats were placed 

 on the platform, close up to the pulpit, so 

 that many faces were before me, and a grand 

 opportunity was afforded for studying hu- 

 manity. I profess to have much charity, 

 and love for unity among the churches, and 

 I have often exhorted toward this same 

 charity and love for our neighbors among 

 the various churches of our town. But this 

 evening it was very natural to see faults, 

 not only among those of my own sex who 

 had gathered there in their Sunday best, but 

 even among the young people of the oppo- 

 site sex. I have before alluded to this 

 temptation of mine ; and as it comes up 

 every now and then, I presume it must be 

 one of Satan's strong points with my poor 

 self. 



During the tirst half of the sermon I found 

 fault with most that was said. The text 

 was '' Eternity,'' and the speaker pictured 

 hell in horrible colors. She said eternity is 

 so great, that, if a bird could fly from the 

 sun to the earth, and take a grain of soil in 

 its bill and fly back again it would, in the 

 process of time, carry this whole earth to 

 the sun ; but this great period of time would 

 be as nothing compared with eternity. The 

 thought was, that everlasting punishment 

 would be ages and ages longer than the 

 lapse of time illustrated by the above figure. 

 I want to say here by way of parenthesis, 

 that, to my ivay of thinking, such illustrations 

 are not wise or in good taste. It seems to 



me we are transgressing on the domain of 

 the Almighty when we use tigures of this 

 kind ; and very likely I shall always think so, 

 even though it is a fact that ministers of 

 various denominations are in the habit of 

 using Such figures quite often. 



She changed her theme toward the close, 

 and her talk fell in with my line of w'ork. 

 She spoke of visiting the jails and prisons, 

 and finally I so heartily indorsed the grand 

 points she made that I should have felt 

 guilty had I kept silent. I added emphasis 

 to one of her remarks by an earnest 

 " Amen." Now, please have charity for me 

 when I tell you that, heretofore during the 

 sermon, I had, much of the time, turned my 

 eyes away from the speaker. I disliked her. 

 and her face was not pleasant to me. After 

 that indorsement by the amen, I began to 

 fsee something different in her expression- 

 something that was pleasant and attractive. 

 Christ's spirit seemed to shine forth from 

 her countenance. Soon after 1 caught a 

 glimpse of some of the faces near her. How' 

 strange ! Christ's spirit seemed to shine 

 forth now, from those faces also ; and as I 

 looked about me the whole audience had 

 been transformed. Instead of narrow-mind- 

 ed people, and people whose faces showed a 

 lack of intelligence, I beheld humanity in 

 the likeness of God the creator. Had they 

 changed under the influences of the earnest 

 preaching? Why, bless you, no, dear read- 

 er ; my own heart had changed, and the peo- 

 ple and the speaker were exactly as they 

 had been. Christ's spirit had finally found 

 a lodging-place in my own heart; and is it 

 at all wonderful that 1 loved everybody? 

 Their faults and imperfections had faded 

 away off in the distance, and the charity and 

 love in my own heart enabled me to 

 see their lovable traits, and the God-like 

 part in them all. 



The services lasted a good while, and it 

 was late when I got home ; but for all that, 

 as I told my wife about the meeting, and 

 knelt by our bedside, I prayed that this bet- 

 ter spirit might go with me through the 

 coming week. That prayer was answered. 

 Are not such prayers always answered? 



I want to stop a minute, however, before 

 considering that coming week. Others may 

 have felt like criticising our public speakers 

 and evangelists in the same way I have 

 mentioned. Well, suppose our sister did 

 say that it was selling corn to the distillers 

 that caused the trouble with the seed corn ; 

 and suppose, too, she did picture etenial 

 punishment in such awful colors as to 

 frighten the youngsters, who shall say her 

 figure was overdrawn? Ask our best think- 

 ers of the day how terrible are the conse- 

 quences of choosing evil rather than good. 

 I have seen men deliberately decide to fol- 

 low Satan. I have seen them go down step 

 by step. I do not know where the end will 

 be, but I think it very likely that neither 

 human tongue nor human imagination would 

 be able to picture the terrible consequences 

 of such a choice. Why, then, should I find 

 fault with the speaker? 



Among the thirty or forty that gathered 

 to the anxious-seat at the close of the meet- 

 ing, there were a good many children. There 



