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GLEANINGS IN J5EE CniTlM^K. 



153 



spells. Some of you may say, '' Why, Mr. 

 Root, I thought you professed to be a Chris- 

 tian. Here you are making a confession of 

 getting mad. even so your face was flushed, 

 and that, too, on tlie Sabhatli day, wlien you 

 are on your way to a mission Sabbath-school 

 to teach a lot "of cliildren, and a little com- 

 munity, tlie way of eternal life. Shame on 

 you, for a hypocrite!"' Hold on, hold on, 

 my friend. I was terribly vexed and stirred 

 up, and my heart seemedto beat like a small 

 locomotive ; and right here I want to tliank 

 Ciod for having i)ut a small locomotive in 

 even this feeble frame. It was bad, 1 know. 

 ]My temper should have been more perfectly 

 sanctified ; but, dear friends, the but recent- 

 ly converted boy was doing the best he could. 

 1 was alone in tlie fields. 1 was under God's 

 blue sky, ami under his overshadowing love 

 as well, I am sure. I prayed him to take 

 the tempter away. I have sometimes won- 

 dered wliy he didn't do it. I prayed for per- 

 liaps nearly half the way of that five-mile 

 walk to my school ; but it was some time 

 before the fierce passion began to " let up." 

 How about the school V Why, God took care 

 of the school, and he took care of me, and it 

 went off all right, and I came home breath- 

 ing praises, and singing, '' Thy will l)e done," 

 or something to that effect. 



On Monday morning I examined into the 

 seeds carefully, and found there was no 

 mistake in the sowing. I also discovered 

 that silverhuU buckwheat looks very dark, 

 or almost black, when it lirst ripens in the 

 field, but that the silvery look comes on aft- 

 erward. 



Do you want to know wliat good came of 

 this little experience? Why, it resulted in 

 making a good lot of great blocks of— what 

 shall I call itV— subdued and sanctified ener- 

 gy — a kind of energy and push, freezing up, 

 as it were, like the blocks of ice, to be kept 

 until it could do some work. The work 

 done was a vehement deteimination to have 

 our seeds so perfectly labeled, inside the 

 bngs and outside the bags, that no such ac- 

 cident could happen as happened that year ; 

 that is. such an accident as happened oidy 

 in my imagination and uncharitableness. 

 This very event, perhaps, did more toward 

 building up an immense trade in seeds, than 

 almost any thing else could have done. A 

 sanctified temper that was piled up that day, 

 is, some of it, there yet ; and when I find a 

 lot of seeds not plainly labeled in at least 

 tiro different places, the energy stored up 

 Ijegins to make itself shown. Is it not well, 

 for me at least, that God has permitted me 

 to be tried, and severely ti'iedV Ho you re- 

 member the lines of tlie little hymn I have 

 several times told you about? — 



.Toy to find, in every station. 

 Somctliing- still to do or hear. 



In my case, my temper came' up that day 

 a good deal because my whole heart and soul 

 were so taken up with raising lioney-plants, 

 and testing them, that I should have been 

 terribly disa]ipoifited if the right kind of 

 seed had not been sown. My feeling was in 

 some respects commendable, but I was 

 wrong in being impatient or hasty. A great 

 many other times in my life, when I have 

 been sorely tried by disappointments because 



of some such accident, instead of venting 

 my spite by harsh and tinkind words, I have 

 gone off by myself and poured out my soul 

 in prayer, asking God to use this intense de- 

 termination to have a better state of alTairs ; 

 and when 1 started back to my work I have 

 felt like saying to myself something like 

 this : " Now, you sec if I don't have this 

 thing fixed in some way so that this blunder 

 can't happen again," and the energy and de- 

 termination was the very thing which push- 

 ed me toward some important invention— 

 not only helping myself, but you also, 

 through the. medium of these pages of 

 Gleanings. 



J3ut, how shall we make an appetite for 

 strong drink or tobacco, or something of 

 that kind, work out good? How shall we 

 freeze this sin into blocks of ice, to be saved 

 up? Terhaps we can manage as father Cole 

 has managed with the rains and Hoods— 

 drop them down out of the way, where they 

 will be harmless, but where they may at 

 some time do us good service, after the harm 

 is past. Satan sometimes gets liolil of us 

 because we are uneasy and discontented. 

 We want something, or want to go some- 

 where. Because we feel uneasy we let our 

 minds wander toward the forbidden thing. 

 We want some excitement, or something to 

 do. Life as it is, is too monotonous. I 

 have been through all these experiences, 

 and I will tell you what I did. I prayed 

 God to help me to put his image in the place 

 of the thing that would do me harm. 1 

 prayed him to help me to substitute, in 

 place of the thing that would harm me, and 

 harm my fellow-men, a love for my Savior 

 that would surely do good to my fellow-men, 

 and the prayer has been over and over again 

 answered. I have lately been thanking (iod 

 for giving me such a keen zest and enjoy- 

 ment in raising plants and vegetables, and! 

 have thanked him for the consciousness 

 that this is an innocent and harmless 

 amusement, if nothing more, and 1 have 

 certainly never enjoyed any thing else so 

 much in my life — no, not in Ihe whole forty- 

 six years of my life, even including happy 

 childhood. ^Ve want to let these lower ap- 

 petites and passions down on a lower level, 

 where they belong, where they will be ser- 

 vants and not masters, just as friend Cole 

 lets down the water from the rains. God's 

 Spirit is to rule, and these other things are 

 to be secondary. 



A great temperance movement has taken 

 place in our town, and this morning almost 

 all the hard drinkers here are wearing the 

 blue ribbon. Last evening we were disap- 

 pointed in getting a speaker from abroad, 

 and so the responsibility fell on our home 

 talent. A hard-working man, whom I have 

 known for fifteen or twenty years, and one 

 whom I have seen go down into intemper- 

 ance, and come up through a Murphy pledge 

 more than ten years ago, after much lu'ging 

 took the floor. He told us about the con- 

 flict of ten years with this fierce appetite. 

 Three points come right in with this Home 

 Paper, and I want to mention them. Satan 

 tried to enter his heart again, as he did with 

 Judas, and this is the way our friend resist- 

 ed. He said there were times, especially 



