FEBRUARY 15, 1918 



135 



be brought about; but I have faith to be- 

 lieve that the time is coming when God will 

 give us the means of talking to friends 

 thousands of miles away, great numbers of 

 them; that he will also give some invention 

 to enable the readers to hear the tones of 

 our voice when they are reading the printed 

 words. Tliis thing has already come to pass 

 to a certain extent, for I suppose you are 

 fully aware that these cj-linders can be ship- 

 ped thousands of miles, especially if they 

 are carefully packed, and enable friends 

 not only to review the words of all those 

 we have read about and loved, but also to 

 hear the very tones of voice of people who 

 have been long years dead and laid in their 

 graves. " Rejoice ! May the Lord be praised 

 for the victories of men." 



Let us go over briefly the overcoming of 

 ditliculties before I could talk to you as I 

 do now thi-ough this beautiful instrument. 

 First, the order to ship it to my Florida 

 home was overlooked or neglected. Second, 

 after it was shipped the agent here at 

 Bradentown kept telling me '* Nothing for 

 A. I. Root." When it finally came, there 

 was no mouthpiece with which to dictate; 

 and the carriage failed to move. When, 

 after hard work and earnest prayer, I suc- 

 ceeded in overcoming this trouble, the ma- 

 chine wouldn't talk plainly and clearly. 

 Finally, in answer to my prayer, I discover- 

 ed that the little steel post that seemed to 

 be riveted so firmly could be lifted back to 

 let the lever come fonvard. Once more, in 

 my triumph, after I succeeded in making it 

 work to perfection, and had used up the 

 cylinder in thanking and praising God for 

 the victory, those cylinders were smashed 

 by the express company in its transit to 

 Medina. Perhaps I was somewhat at fault 

 in my method of packing; but I had large 

 printed labels pasted all over the package, 

 saying, " Fragile, handle with care." The 

 express agent or handlers, however, seemed 

 to pay no attention to this caution.* Both 

 of the first two packages were smashed and 

 rendered almost useless. After we got it 

 working so finely, Mrs. Root suggested tliat 

 perhaps there was a providence in it after 

 all; for had not all these troubles occurred 

 I would not have been obliged to pull the 

 machine all to pieces and study its construc- 

 tion so fully, so that now 1 was perfect 

 master of every detail of the complicated 

 apparatus. Yes, this is true; and this try- 

 ing experience I have had is probablj- worth 

 much more than all it cost. But now, dear 



* I notice the U. S. Express Co. furnishes its 

 agents a good-sized label, reading as follows: "Glass: 

 with great care. Put this upon every package of 

 glass." Now, the agent who would deliberately ruin 

 a package thus labeled should be severely dealt with. 



friends, comes a much greater and grander 

 truth. In praying that I might have the 

 wisdom to surmount the obstacles that lay 

 before me I came into closer touch with my 

 Savior than perhaps I had ever been before. 

 In fact, for several days afterward it seem- 

 ed as if a new companionship was with me, 

 and by my side, no matter what 1 was do- 

 ing. Scrijature texts came to me in gi'eat 

 numbers that«l had never jjarticularly no- 

 ticed before, and seemed to sliine out with 

 a new and wondrous promise. I presume 

 this experience will not only give me more 

 faith, but will, perhaps, make the Bible 

 promises brighter, many of them, for the 

 rest of my life. For instance, I recalled 

 ihe time when the disciijles were worried 

 because they thought the Master was re- 

 proving them for forgetting to bring bread. 

 In one of our texts I have recalled the cir- 

 cumstance. He remonstrated with them for 

 not having remembered how he fed the mul- 

 titudes with the loaves and fishes, and for 

 not remembering that all the resources of 

 this great universe were at his beck and 

 call. The man, woman, or child who has no 

 difficulties or trials to overcome can never 

 arise to his fullest and greatest and grands 

 est development. " To him that overcometh 

 I will give to eat of the tree of life, which 

 is in the midst of the paradise of God." 



POULTRY-KEEPING ON OUR COXVERGENT 

 POULTRY-RANCH IN FLORIDA. 



When we arrived here the first week in 

 November my first work was to get our fifty 

 pullets from my neighbor Abbott and in- 

 stall them on our place. The pullets re- 

 membered their old home of six months 

 before, without question; for, the very first 

 thing, they sought out their familiar scratch- 

 ing-places and places to roost, watering- 

 1 laces, etc. As they had scarcely finished 

 moulting, for a few days we got very few 

 eggs, perhaps only three or four to start 

 with. As eggs, however, were forty cents a 

 f'lozen the pullets veiy soon began to pay 

 for their feed. At the present time (first 

 week in January) we are getting from fif- 

 teen to twenty eggs. I might remark right 

 here tliat eighteen ducks have given us 

 about as many eggs as fifty pullets so far; 

 and as the ducks get a large part of their 

 feed from the canal I have spoken of, they 

 are more profitable than chickens so far. 

 With the fifty pullets was a thi-ee-year-old 

 Buttercup rooster. He, too, was iu the 

 midst of a moult. I suppose it is not very 

 good management to expect a three-year- 

 old rooster to give eggs with very high 

 fertility when given as many as fifty pul- 



