G Ij E A N I N G S IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1919 



if there be a God, have mercy on a poor, 

 discouraged and defeated human being." 

 I do not know what I expected or whethei- 

 I expected anything; but something unex- 

 pected came into my mind. Put in words 

 it seemed like a voice saying, " Child, what 

 do you want? What is it that you crave f" 

 Then I answered aloud, continuing wy 

 prayer, " Give me back, if it is a possible 

 thing, the happy innocence of childhood." 

 It Avas so long ago I can not remember dis- 

 tinctly the outcome; but for the first time 

 it dawned on my consciousness that I was 

 to be relieved from responsibility. I was 

 to stand to one side and let the Lord do the 

 work.* I went home with a new and hap- 

 ])y feeling in my heart that I had not had 

 for years and years. My mother's teach- 

 ings vividly came back; and as soon as I 

 reached home I hunted up the old neglect- 

 ed Bible. I opened it somewhere in the 

 New Testament; and, oh, how different 

 that Bible seemed ! A great searchlight, 

 as it seemed, was turned on those precious 

 pages. I think I kej^t reading until after 

 midnight; and with the morning light I 

 started out with my feet on the solid Rock. 

 Now, the great point in the above that 

 I could not understand was that help out- 

 side of our own selves is promised to all 

 who accept the help of '' the Lamb of God 

 that taketh away the sin of the world." 

 It is almost fifty years since what I have 

 been telling you happened. I have told 

 you again and again about that little 

 prayer of mine. I have sometimes called it 

 my '' emergency prayer." I have told you, 

 too, that after a while, when I had got so 

 much in the habit of breathing it inward- 

 ly (or even out loud, when I was away all 

 alone) that tiiis little prayer would come 

 up of itself, and it seemed almost as if 

 some good friend were near by ; and when 

 T was tempted to be harsh or severe, before 



*It occurs to me that a little further explanation 

 is needed right here. I do not know how long I 

 remained on my knees. Some way it was made 

 plain to me that lefore I could have back the in- 

 nocence of childhood there would have to be an 

 " unconditional surrender." The words of an old 

 hymn express it vividly: 



Here I give my all to thee — 



Friends and time and earthly store ; 

 Soul and body thine to be — ■ 

 Wholly thine for evermore. 



Before I con.sented to such a surrender as the 

 above there was quite a debate going on in my mind. 

 I might be called on to give up bee culture or this 

 little journal. As I mentally reviewed the condi- 

 tions expressed in the above verse I began to think 

 that (like poor Germany) the conditions were too 

 hard; and tlien the new and precious light began 

 to fade away and old temptations came back. I 

 finally promised the good Lord to let him load and 

 I would follow. Of course, Satan whispered that 

 it would ruin my business and ruin my life. Did 

 it do so? Not much. 



I opened my mouth the " Lord, help," 

 would seem almost as if spoken by soiuD- 

 body to bid me be careful. 



Now, during the past few months an- 

 other experience — a wonderful and most 

 precious experience — has come into my life. 

 Some of you will recall what I have said 

 about our second text — " Let the words of 

 my mouth and the meditation of my heart 

 be acceptable in thy sight." Last fall, 

 after I got back to my Bradentown home, 

 I repeated the text in the prayer-meeting, 

 and remarked something like this : 



" My good friends, I do not know but 1 

 have been priding myself for years past 

 that I have made very few hasty speeches, 

 or said things that I was sony for after- 

 , ward. Perhaps I have been priding myself 

 that I have succeeded pretty fairly in re- 

 gard to 'the words of my mouth;' but 

 when it comes to the second part of this 

 beautiful text, 'let the meditatinn of my 

 heart be acceptable in thy sight,' oh, dear 

 me! it seems as if I shall never be able to 

 stop thinking of things that are bad or un- 

 profitable. And I prayed over it, and my 

 prayer was answered. God, in his wonder- 

 ful kindness, love, and mercy, sent a little 

 monitor — perhaps it was the ' still small 

 voice ' that is promised to his children." 

 Let me digress a little. 



A great part of my good father's life 

 was made unhappy because of the faults 

 of others. A line fence was not where it 

 ought to be, cutting off perhaps half an 

 acre of his farm, and this made him un- 

 happy for several years. Well, I have 

 thought sometimes that I inherited this dis- 

 position to dwell on things of this kind un- 

 til they spoiled my peace of mind. See the 

 following, which I clipped from the little 

 tract, " How to be Happy when People 

 Abuse You." 



THE DEKK.\T OF INJUSTICE. 



No one can ever aflford to think about any injus- 

 tice he receives. It is disaster and destruction to do 

 so. It is like deliberately lifting a glass of poison 

 to our lips and swallowing it. Injustice inflicted 

 upon us never harms us until we dwell on it. While 

 we ignore it, and do right, it is powerless against 

 us. When we begin to turn it over in our mind, it 

 starts its murderous work upon us. It soon exag- 

 gerates itself, blinds us, rankles, inflames, embitters. 



By the way, the above, also, comes from 

 my good friend Trumbull. Well, even of 

 late years (I am ashamed to confess it) 

 wlien I have not been strictly truthful, or 

 when I am tempted to criticise somebody 

 because he did not live up to my ideas or 

 notions, I get into an unhappy frame of 

 mind. One day when I was feeling stirred 

 up by something of that sort T was almost 

 startled at something that seemed like a 

 voice that suggested " meditation of my 



