158 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



weak — it is not in me. Oh! God help me in 

 this great and unexpected trouble. Help 

 me to be a true Christian and a faithful fol- 

 lower of Christ Jesus." 



And this strong man bowed his head and 

 wept convulsively. Hi solder friend — older in 

 years as well as in Christian experience — 

 told him God would provide a waj' out. He 

 assured him that a sense of his own frailty 

 and weakness was the best indication he 

 could possibly have, that he was on safe 

 ground. "Him that cometh to me I will in 

 nowise cast out." In a few short daj-s 

 John was not only free from the danger 

 that threatened him, for God opened his 

 prison -doors, and he went out among men, 

 a free and an honest man. 



There is something peculiar about Satan's 

 work along this line. One of the peculiar- 

 ities is this: If Satan once gets a foothold 

 — if a man or woman either stops to listen 

 to him, or is curious about this strange lab- 

 yrinth (of sin) that seems harmless enough 

 at the outset — if, as I have said, either the 

 man or woman decides i perhaps only out of 

 curiosity i to go just a little way in this di- 

 rection, and explore, they will be pretty 

 sure to be lost. The winding-up is often 

 like the newspaper clipping, only this is a 

 little i)iore marked than any thing I have 

 seen before. She became infatuated with a 

 murderer. Satan does not scruple about 

 whom he uses in this kind of work. The 

 man or woman v horn he has woven inlo his 

 toils may be very commonplace indeed. 

 The world may look on and say, "Why, 

 what possesses that fellow to go crazy after 

 such a woman?" I do not think the world 

 often gets a true answer. It is this: It is 

 the Devil hijiiself Xhixt "possessed" him, 

 that made him act so. It is the Devil, and 

 he otily, that possessed that man so as to 

 induce him to forget his wife, his children, 

 his good name, his religion, his Maker, and 

 his all. Sometimes the parties are excused 

 by saying it commenced in a harmless, in- 

 nocent way. I have heard excuses made 

 like this: "I do not believe either of them 

 thought of doing any thing wrong when it 

 commenced. Circumstances were such that 

 they were thrown together a great deal; 

 and, before they knew it or realized it, their 

 peace of mind was gone, and Satan had 

 them in his toils." I can not quite agree 

 with this. I think these two people — that 

 is, these two whom you saj' did not dream 

 of any thing wrong — did know there was 

 just a little wrong; and it is the //7//6' wrong 

 that does the harm. \Vhene\er there is any 

 thing in our li\es that it seems expedient to 

 cover up from the full light of day, there is 

 danfi;er of wrong. I do not believe in se- 

 crets; and perhaps I might say, in paren- 

 thesis, I do not believe in secret societies; 

 but I will not quarrel with those who be- 

 lieve otherwise. If we are at all times will- 

 ing that all we do and all we saj' may, if 

 occasion demands, be open to the light of 

 the outside world we are on pretty good 

 ground. Of course we do not want stran- 

 gers intruding on our privacies; but what I 



mean is this: Whenever it shall be necessa- 

 ry or expedient that any particular event 

 of our daily lives be spread out before the 

 world, if we are honest and true with our 

 fellow-men at such times as this we need 

 not be worried nor troubled. 



There is something peculiarly Satanic 

 about all this work. As a rule, a man who 

 is a professor of religion is not likely to 

 drink or gamble or steal; but it has been 

 thrown up to us again and again that some 

 of our devout Christians who talk and pray 

 in meeting are just as likely to be caught 

 in some disgrace along this line as any oth- 

 er; yes, and some of the enemies of Christ 

 Jesus say they are more likely. They tell 

 us (and we can not altogether deny it) that 

 even our ministers — especially our revival 

 ministers — are notorious for having favorites 

 among the opposite sex, especially during 

 revival times. "V^hy, the very thous;ht of it 

 is awful. Let us hope that this thing be- 

 longs more to the exciting revival seasons 

 of times past than to those of the present 

 day. Then there is another feature of this 

 case. When this minister is remonstrated 

 with by his good friends he absolutelj' de- 

 nies that any thing of the kind exists or 

 ever has existed. He declares unblushing- 

 ly that his inmost thoughts are free from 

 it in the sight of God; but when he is ad- 

 vised to shun even the appearance of evil, 

 and to keep entirely away out of sio^ht as 

 much as possible of the one who is talked 

 about in connection with his name, in a 

 very little time the two are found together 

 again. He explains it by saying there 

 were "peculiar circumstances " of such a 

 nature that the thing absolutely had to be 

 talked over, and explanations made. Poor 

 silly fool! No, I have got it wrong. I 

 should say a. pair of poor silly fools. Satan 

 has so blinded their e3'es and bewildered 

 their judgment that they have not even com- 

 mon sense — no, not even the commonest kind 

 of sense — and the thing goes on — that is, 

 unless the friends of the parties have the 

 good sense and wisdom to see there is no 

 other remedy for either Christian or sinner 

 than to get them away from each other. If 

 the man is sent off to another parish he many 

 be all right the rest of his life. He ought 

 to be, on the principle that a burnt child 

 dreads the fire. If the distance is not great, 

 however, Satan does not let go. He man- 

 ages, by some hook or crook, to get up an 

 excuse so that one or both of the parties 

 shall bridge the distance. God knows how 

 it pains me to go over this thing; and I 

 would not do it were it not for the hope that 

 I may be enabled to hold up a warning. I 

 have had a man look me in the face, and 

 declare before God that no such thought as 

 I had suggested had entered his heart, and 

 I was over-persuaded by friends all around 

 me to try to think the man told me the truth. 

 Only a few weeks after, he admitted he was 

 getting a divorce from his wife as fast as 

 he could, and then he was going to marry 

 the girl. I have heard men tell falsehoods 

 when they were cvai.y with strong drink. 



