1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



151 



0ai^ }l0MEg. 



When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh 

 even his enemies to be at i)cace with him.— Prov. 



16: 7. 



"ETOW, I am going to presume in my 

 1*1' talk to joii to-day. tliat we have en- 

 «PI emies even in our homes. It is a sad 

 ■*- * thing to contemphite, but facts are 

 often sad. I have particularly in 

 mind the relationship existing between 

 father and mother, and son and daugh- 

 ter; and if there Is any relationship in 

 this world tluit is sacred, it seems to me 

 it is the relationship between parent and 

 child. What does that have to do with the 

 matter of enemies ? Well, I suspect if Sa- 

 tan liad never obtained a passageway into 

 the human heart there might liave been 

 perfect peace and harmony under all cir- 

 cumstances, and for all time, between par- 

 ent and child. Let me illustrate what 1 am 

 thinking of, by a little chapter from my own 

 experience. 



I am (jue of seven children. There are 

 three older and three younger. My past 

 recollections of my mother are, that she was 

 a hard-working, burden-bearing mother. 

 Her trust was in the Savior always, but she 

 had many trials and difficulties. In addi- 

 tion to the large family, we were at one 

 time in rather straitened circumstances. 

 Father \\as a carpenter by trade, and did 

 not always get employment. At other 

 times sickness threw liim behind. I re- 

 member when affairs got to such a point 

 that things really looked dark for father 

 and mother and a family of seven, and that 

 mother had been praying that God would 

 open a way for father to earn an honest 

 livelihood. The prayer was answered, bnt 

 the conditions of it were that he should be 

 away from home perhaps more than half of 

 the "time. This threw the management of 

 the family upon mother. Now, father was 

 stern and severe. He was of the old Con- 

 necticut type, and did not believe in sparing 

 the rod. Every one of the seven, from the 

 baby up, learned to obey, and a good many 

 times they obeyed with fear and trembling. 

 We obeyed mother also, but no child was 

 ever afraid of her. If she punished, her 

 loving hand was restrained by a loving 

 heart from making the punishment any 

 thing very much to be dreaded. When 

 father was at home we obeyed her some- 

 what through fear of him, if we did not 

 obey with alacrity ; but when he M'as away, 

 some of us fell into loose ways. 1 myself 

 remember with feelings of sorrow my self- 

 ish and disobedient acts and ways ; and 

 when my elder brother was away I was the 

 eldest boy in the hotisehold, and my serv- 

 ices were much needed. But I got lazy 

 and listless about getting up mornings. My 

 mother would call me twice, and sometimes 

 the third time, l)ut T didn't get up then until 

 I got ready. I was also in the companionship 

 of bad boys more or less— boys I shouldn't 

 have l»eeii with had my father been at home, 

 and from them I learned examples of dis- 

 obedience. A neighbor would call one of 

 the children two or three times. The chil- 



dren, without making move to obey, would 

 "• sass back," as we boys used to term it, in 

 an undertone. The conversation might be 

 sometliing like this : 



" Charlie, I have called you three times ; 

 now come here this hn^tant." 



Charlie replies in an undertone, " Well, 

 suppose you did call three times — who cares?'' 



At this the other boys would titter and 

 laugh, which incited Charlie to further acts 

 of disobedience. By and by Charlie would 

 get whipped for bad behavior. When he 

 came back he would have over something 

 like the following : 



"Scolding don't hurt any, whipping don't 

 last long, and kill you they dare not." 



Now, friends, I never did as badly as the 

 above ; l)ut I might have done so had I had 

 the same kind of training and encourage- 

 ment in badness. I can not remember 

 positively, but 1 presume likely my mothei' 

 used to speak sometliing like this : 



" Amos, I have calle<l you three times 

 now, and you really must get up at once." 



1 do not rememlier of ever talking back 

 when my mother called me, but I do re- 

 member that I grumbled to myself, as I got 

 up in a sullen way, '' Well, "suppose you 

 have called me three times — who cares V and 

 who wants to l)e scolded at and found fault 

 with for everlasting?" 



Of course, I got up surly. If the dog got 

 in the way before my eyes were well open, I 

 kicked him. If my younger brothers or 

 sisters, who were up and washed, and 

 bright and happy, half an hour before I was, 

 came in the way, I felt angered at them. 

 Perhaps I gave one of my sisters' dolls a 

 kick. After 1 had been up a while these 

 surly, peevish feelings wore off, and I was 

 a tolerably bright happy boy, and most of 

 the time we were a pleasant, happy family. 

 But I am saddened to be obliged to admit, 

 that sometimes the surliness seemed to be 

 contagious, and got among several of us at 

 once. We pained our tired, patient mother 

 by wrangles and disputes; and when she ex- 

 horted us to godliness and loving-kindness 

 to each other, we rejected her Bible and her 

 religion. Now, mind you, we didn't often 

 do this openly to her face, if we ever did. 

 It was a sort of undercuiTcnt ; and had we 

 been called to task we would have said, may 

 be, we were ''just in fun."' Poor mother 

 was sorely tried with many cares as well as 

 fatigue, and it would be nothing strange if 

 she sometimes forgot just a little, and re- 

 proached or complained, in a way that was 

 not just the wisest. Dear father and moth- 

 er, whose eyes are resting on these pages, 

 have you never had any trouble by disobe- 

 dience among the children ? Have you nev- 

 er been tried to see them growing up selfish 

 and indifferent V and have you never felt 

 any discouragement, and felt that talking 

 was of no use V JSIay be you do not say it 

 out loud, but did you ever feel. " I declare, 

 I have talked and talked to that boy .John 

 until it seems as if there were not a bit of 

 use in talking any longer. If the boy goes 

 to ruin, he will have to go. I actually beT 

 lieve I have told him twenty tunes to put 

 his muddy boots out on the porch ; to hang 

 up his hat, and to shut the stair door after 



