1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



781 



For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is 

 •eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Rom. 6:28. 



At the close of Mr. Reed's work (men- 

 tioned in our last issue) he gave a sermon 

 on the text above. He applied the text 

 principally to spiritual death. He said the 

 world is full of dead people who are still 

 going' about; but they are dead to God's 

 claims. He said there were dead people in 

 that neighborhood, and he feared there 

 might be dead people in that audience who 

 were listening to his voice. \^'ealthy peo- 

 ple especially — our millionaires for instance 

 — are most likely to be spirituallj' dead. 

 It seems sad to think that those who have 

 most to thank God for should not only for- 

 get him but ignore him, and laugh in sar- 

 casm and irony when any thing is said 

 about their responsibility to the God who 

 made them. In order to illustrate this 

 spiritual death, Mr. Reed spoke something 

 as follows: 



We will take a young man for illustra- 

 tion who starts out in the business world. 

 We will suppose this young man has been 

 brought up here in Bingham by Christian 

 parents. He has gone to the Bingham Sun- 

 day-school here in this little church, and 

 learned to love his Bible. He is going off 

 to some great city — we will say Chicago. 

 As he goes to take the train his father and 

 mother go with him. With tears and praj^- 

 ers the good mother puts the little Bible 

 into his hands, and he gives her his prom- 

 ise to read it every day. This promise is 

 kept for a time. Every thing is new and 

 strange to him. He does not know any- 

 body, and nobody seems to care for him. 

 He spends a great deal of his spare time in 

 his own room, and reads his little Bible 

 every day as he promised, and commences 

 to grow in spiritual life. Finafly he be- 

 comes a little acquainted with the boys in 

 the shop or store, and they begin to notice 

 him. At first he is a victim to their jokes, 

 and he begins to fear them, naturally look- 

 ing up to them as being a little more expe- 

 rienced, and feeling willing to learn of 

 them something of the ways of business, 

 and, if you choose, the ways of the world. 

 By and by some of them invite him to go 

 along with them and see something of the 

 big city. It is not long before he is invited 

 to have something to drink with the rest. 

 He begins to say no; in fact, he does say 

 wo, but it is rather feeble. And here is the 

 first great danger — the turning-point. Bro. 

 Reed said, "Oh I wish /could say no just 

 once for that boy who came from Bingham I 

 An emphatic decisive no would settle the 

 question for all time to come." The boys 

 laugh at him, and begin to banter him. 

 They know from past experience what his 

 "no" means. One of them gets hold of 



him, then another gets hold of his arm on 

 the other side, and pretty soon he drinks 

 just a little to keep up appearances. But 

 he goes back and keeps his promise to his 

 mother, readinghisBible that night. By and 

 by somebody invites him to go to the thea- 

 ter. Now, mind you, dear reader, Bro. 

 Reed and I are not considering the question 

 of theaters as a whole just now. There 

 may be wide differences of opinion in re- 

 gard to theater-going; but this boy from 

 Bingham has no business going to a thea- 

 ter; he can not afford it; and even if the 

 other boys do promise to pay for his ticket, 

 it makes no difference; in fact, it makes it 

 worse, because he then comes under obliga- 

 tions to them. With his small pay, and the 

 sacrifice the good father and mother at 

 home are making for him, he has no money 

 to spare. Another thing, with his bring- 

 ing-up going to a theater would be a let- 

 ting-down of his principles. His- mother 

 would not approve of it, even if it did not 

 cost money. I need not follow all the de- 

 tails. You know how it is yourself. Pret- 

 ty soon the boy is smoking a cigar. At 

 first he objects and holds back. He has no 

 money for such things. Besides, he does 

 not like the smell or taste of tobacco; but 

 he is in Satan's training-school. It all 

 goes along by steps — little steps, and easy 

 steps. He still continues to read the Bible, 

 for he is a boy of his word — at least he is 

 as yet. But these Bible-promises that used 

 to be so full of meaning, and so precious to 

 him, are beginning to be dead and dull. 

 He reads the words mechanically, but they 

 have no meaning. The life has gone out of 

 those sacred pages. It is getting to be a 

 aead book; and the time finally comes when 

 he shuts it up for good. He remembers his 

 mother, but he throws his head back and 

 says to himself, "OhI mother is all right 

 enough, from her standpoint; but she does 

 not know any thing about this great busy 

 world of ours. She's a back number. As 

 for me, my brain has grown somewhat since 

 I left that little home in Bingham." Poor 

 fellow! it is his stomach that has grown, 

 rather than his brain. As he closes the old 

 book for the last time the last spark of life 

 has departed. He is spiritually dead. 



The merchants and the manufacturers of 

 the great cities are continually sending out 

 into the country and into the little towns to 

 get boys that are not contaminated by the 

 iniquity of the great cities. These uncon- 

 taminated boys are worth their weight in 

 gold — that is, if they hold on to the princi- 

 ples they received in their humble homes. 

 But when they get to the point that that boy 

 from Bingham reached, they are not only 

 dead to God's appeals, but their employers, 

 sooner or later, discover that, so far as val- 

 uable business ability is concerned, they 

 are like the rest of the great city. They 

 are dead to any prospect of promotion or 

 trust. 



And now, dear friends, let us go back to 

 that paper I held in my hands. I had a 

 little talk at the close of that last sermon. 



