1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



517 



the caboose car, occupied by the train boys, 

 I found only a Hible and an almanac to while 

 away the hours; and as tlie trani moved 

 slowly I road the Bible and the almanac al- 

 ternately. Now, it is a sad confession, but 

 it is honestly true, the Hible at that time did 

 not interest me nor take hold of me. I re- 

 member distinctly of thinking that the pat- 

 ent-medicine almanac interested me more 

 than the Bible. The Bible at that time of 

 my life was an "unexplored region." I did 

 not comprehend it nor understand it. The 

 reason for it was because I was not living in 

 harmony with its teachings; and, worst of 

 all, I did not propose to live so This is a sad 

 confession for me to make, but it is the truth. 

 Now, in one respect I was honest about it. 

 The Bible did not interest me. My eyes had 

 not been opened. The scales had not fallen 

 from them. Let me illustrate: 



I hold in my hand an instrument contain- 

 ing a very minute particle of radium. A 

 label is pasted on the instrument reading as 

 follows: 



The radium in this spinthariscope is in the form of 

 bromide of radium, and has an activity of 300,000. The 

 observer must remain in an absolutely dark room for 

 four minutes before attempting to view the emanations. 



Williams, Bkown & Earle, 

 Sole .American Atrents, 918 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. 



Now, if you take the instrument out in 

 broad daylight, and put it up to your eye, 

 you can not see any tiling at all. You might 

 as well try to look into an iron wedge. When 

 I first received it I could hardly believe there 

 was any thing to be seen in that opaque 

 body. There was no light whatever. I 

 went into a dark room and remained there 

 for four or five minutes, and even then I 

 could not see any thing. I was ready to ex- 

 claim, "Humbugged again!" for the instru- 

 ment cost me ten or twelve dollars. How- 

 ever, I went over home and went into a 

 very dark clothes-press and stayed several 

 minutes. Then I began to get a glimpse of 

 the glittering stars as they poured forth un- 

 ceasingly from that little speck of radium. 

 Then I discovered, almost for the first time, 

 that the loving Father had so formed the 

 human eye that one can accustom himself to 

 seeing in the dark. If you look at the sun, 

 or go out on a bright winter's day, the pupil 

 of your eye will contract so that, when you 

 go back indoors, you can not see any thing 

 for some time. The eye must change so as 

 to adapt itself to the amount of light. In the 

 same way, when you step out of doors on a 

 dark night you will say at first, "Why, you 

 can not see an inch before your face;" but 

 stay out in the pitchy darkness for ten or 

 twenty minutes and you can see a good 

 many things quite plainly that were at first 

 invisible. The label on the instrument says 

 four minutes; but with me it takes fifteen 

 or more for my "second sight," if I may so 

 call it, to ^et fully developed. 



After I nad had the radium quite a spell, 

 one night I left it on the stand by my bed- 

 side, with the cover off; and when I had oc- 

 casion to get up about midnight I was as- 

 tonished to see the scintillations shining out 

 from that little instrument so I could see 



them clear across the room; and I then dis- 

 covered that the eye can see a great many 

 things, after being a long time in pitchy dark- 

 ness, that can not be seen otherwise. With- 

 in a few days this fact has come out (juite 

 vividly in my work with the new egg-tester. 

 I have been studying the incubation of eggs 

 for two or three years past; but it seems I 

 have been so stupid that I never learned, 

 until a few weeks ago, how to see the move- 

 ments of the chicken inside of the egg. 

 Well, I have just found out that the eye 

 needs to be trained in the same way that it 

 does to see the shooting stars through this 

 spinthariscope. Now, it you enjoy what I 

 am going to tell you as much as I have en- 

 joyed going through this great "unexplored 

 region " you will feel very happy, and I shall 

 feel very happy too. You want either a sit- 

 ting hen or an incubator — one is as good as 

 the other. But they should be, for conven- 

 ience, in a room that can be darkened. Shut 

 out every ray of light except a round hole 

 where the sun can shine through, say in the 

 forenoon or afternoon. Make an egg-tester 

 as I have described, and let this ray of sun- 

 light strike the egg on the end where the air- 

 bubble is. You should Lave white thin- 

 shelled eggs. The sunlight will go through 

 the shell where the air-oubble is, and will 

 illuminate the whole inside of the egg enough 

 so that your eye, while in the dark room, 

 will see much that is going on inside, and by 

 making a test every day you can see just 

 how the chicken grows. Your first glimpse 

 will probably be from three to five days af- 

 ter the chick has started On the thirteenth 

 day I saw one of these chickens put its foot 

 down against the shell as plainly as if the 

 chick had stepped in ink and then walked on 

 a white cloth. And I saw it put down the 

 other foot and make a step. Now, before I 

 was enabled to do this I had to practice a 

 good many days to get the conditions just 

 right, and to see what is possible to be seen 

 by a trained and enthusiastic experimenter."' 

 Well, friends, in order to see what is in the 

 Bible you must go at it exactly as I have 

 been doing to investigate animal life in the 

 egg. The condition given in our opening 

 text is that we must not only believe but 

 ''live" in Christ Jesus. I did not under- 

 stand the Bible, and I could not comprehend 

 it, because I was not livingt with the lowly 



*' If you are usintr spectacles you will need a pair for 

 this purpose with very stront; maKnifyini? power. I 

 use a pair of eye-trlasses with only six-inch focus; and 

 as you will probably have to iret the ees rather close 

 to the eye to see it to the best advantasje you may be 

 obliiied to whittle down your paper box to let the eye 

 come within the proper distance of the euK. Youny 

 people with cood eyesitrht will use the esg-tester read- 

 ily, that I described on pane 384, June 15. 



t Before I could tret a glimpse of the shootintr stars 

 from the r .dium, or see what was Koing on inside of 

 the ej^KS, I had to comply with certain conditions— 

 keeping' in a dark room until my eye had adjusted itself 

 to see thintrs that wou'd otherwise be invisible. Well, 

 in just the same way, in order to inherit everlasting 

 life with Jesus Christ we must put ourselves in har- 

 mony with certain conditions. Notice the word "liveth" 

 in our text. We must be living with him and ma^ in^- 

 his work our work— his sympathies our sympathies; 

 and. finally, when we are both living with and believ- 

 inu in him we shall never see death. 



