558 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1. 



words of our text— not to be ministered unto, 

 but to minister? Oh! I am sure tliere are 

 thousands who will eventually pj'oue themselves 

 to be the salt of the earth; thousands who love 

 God and who love humanity much more than 

 they love money or houses and lands; thou- 

 sands who can never be tempted; in fact, who 

 would never tind any enjoyment or comtort in 

 that which is not honestly their own, earned by 

 square and fair honest labor. 1 have been 

 hoping and praying that these thousands would 

 come to the relief of our country's needs. 1 

 know they must be roused and stirred up. sooner 

 or later They will consent to hold othces— i 

 am sure they will. Yes, we shall ultimately 

 have professing Christians for policemen; we 

 shall have Christian men for sheriffs, and men 

 who will show Christianity when they entorce 

 the law. If there are people in our land who 

 ?nust be shot down because they will not yield 

 to law and order, for God's sake let us have the 

 shooting done by C^rristittJirneu 



I am coming near to fault-finding in this 

 paper of mine, dear friends; but i must speak 

 of one more thing that indicates danger— yes, 

 terrible danger. When ihe sheriffs of our own 

 State of Ohio had exhausted all their means to 

 preserve law <ind order, and were unable to 

 stop the burning of bridges right on ihis very 

 railroad that runs through our home— when 

 these scenes of burning bridges and stopping 

 trains had gone to such an extent that the or- 

 dinary officers of the law were unable to re- 

 strain the rioters, the State militia were called 

 out. First the militia from one county were 

 called, then from another county, then another, 

 until ii looked as if all the troops of the State 

 would be needed. Well, the law-breakers 

 yielded I believe, to the militia; but while the 

 militia were standing guard, and preserving 

 order by their oresence, what did they do? 

 Well I do not know what they did all along the 

 line; but in one or two places they went into 

 the saloons and drank beer. Yes, they played 

 games, and put up a keg of beer as a stake for 

 the winners. Some of you will laugh at this. 

 Some of you will say, " Why, Mr. Root, you are 

 not posted. Your Medina County, with some 

 other counties near you, are an exception to 

 the rest of the State. Dow u here toward the 

 Ohio River, almost everybody drinks beer. 

 Even members of the church do when ihey 

 meet a friend." Well, perhaps I am not posted 

 in regard to the whole State of Ohio; and yet 

 I know something about these matters, after 

 all- and I fear that law and order will never 

 be permanently restored until more terrible 

 things happen than we have seen yet. 



An officer of the law here in Medina County 

 once arrested a man for disorderly conduct 

 while drunk. As they had to ride together 

 some distance to reach the jail, the officer 

 got thirsty, went into a saloon and got a drink 

 of beer, and generously (?) remembered his poor 

 prisoner, and asked him to drink -some beu' 

 too. What sort of law is that, and what sort of 

 an officer was he who arrested a man, and put 

 him in jail for the sin of intoxication, and then 

 gave him a glass of intoxicants on the way to 

 the jail? Is this kind of fashion of enforcing 

 our laws either sense or reason? 



Do some of you think that even A. I. Root 

 himself is getting discouraged? No, I am not 

 getting discouraged. The Bible says. " The 

 way of the transgressor is hard;" and if we, a 

 nation of people, become transgressors, or, at 

 least, a great part of us become transgressors, 

 we shall find our ways hard. They ouijht to he 

 hard. It is better for us to have them hard. 

 The wages of sin is death; and if we choose 

 sin and selfishness, we should not be surprised 

 when death confronts us. But there are other 



Bible promises. There is one that reads, " Tht 

 meek shall inherit the earth." The meek. th< 

 honest, the quiet, the sober, the true, are ulii 

 maitly to have charge ; and the thing tha 

 troubles me just now is, that the meek are no 

 found coming forward and accepting their in 

 heritance. 



Our people and our children, I fear, are get 

 ting the foolish and mistaken idea that tli 

 happiest man is the one who has many to wai 

 upon him— the one who has lots of servants 

 and can sit at his ease, and put on lordly styli 

 It is not true. It is a great blunder. Th 

 happiest people in this whole wide land ar 

 those who have learned the truth of our text- 

 " not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 



There are several bright features to look a 

 in our land just now. One is, to see the num 

 ber of people— especially young people— wh 

 are enjoying themselves riding wheels. Thci 

 are a few who still sit in tine carriages, an 

 who seem inclined to look down upon th 

 wheelers; but they do not succeed very wcl 

 The boy or girl who rambles at will over hi 

 and dale, enjoying these June days, is briglu 

 er and happier, and more to be envied — ever s 

 much more— than one who rides in a carriag( 

 The former helps himself; no sweaty overbui 

 dened horses are required to give him pleasun 

 He develops lungs and muscle and brain b 

 helping himself. He laughs not only at fle( 

 horses, but is in a measure independent of rai 

 way trains. No matter whether the train ! 

 late, or whether he fails to be on hand at tl 

 appointed time, he is independent. Peop 

 talk about the hard times; but just see ho 

 many people — even quite young people 

 find the means, in some way, to purchase 

 wheel! The times are not so very hard, a i 

 the most of us can get all that is best for us 

 have, with a little exertion of brain and muscl 

 Oh I am so glad it is becoming fashionable- 

 least in certain lines— to cultivate muscle a: 

 lung capacity! 



Now, dear friends, believe me when I tell yi 

 that getting ahead of your neighbors by que 

 tionable or dishonest means does not bring ha 

 piness. VVhy, such kind of pleasure or enjo 

 ment is an empty bubble. It is a hollow fran 

 The only real comfort or satisfaction, and t 

 only thing that can be really called enjoymo 

 is in earning our bread by the sweat of o 

 face, and rendering unto Caesar the things th 

 are Cajsar's, and unto God the things that a 

 God's. 



OUK STRAWBEKKY KKPORT. 



If you will look back on page 517 again I ci 

 show you where we had our biggest strawber 

 yield. It was just back of that piece of rye 

 the right of the windmill. It is the highf 

 ground on our ranch; and after turning und 

 a piece of heavy clover we planted one re 

 each of all our six varieties of strawberries, o 

 year ago last spring. They took right holj 

 and grew in the mellow soil among the uptur 

 ed clover roots, to my complete satisfactic 

 During the summer it was very little work 

 take care of them. We occasionally ri 

 through one of those fine-toothed cultivatoj, 

 and that was about all there was of it. Very f€| 

 weeds came up. And. by the way, is not lur 

 ing under a clover sod one of the very bf 

 plans to get a piece of ground free from weed: 



