

He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.— Luke 16:10. 



MYSELF AND MY NEIGHBORS. 



The steps of a g-ood man arc ordered by the Lord: 

 and he delig-hteth in his waj'. Though he fall, he 

 shall not be utterly cast down: tor the Lord up- 

 holdeth him with his hand.— Psalm 37: 23, 24. 



T HAVE before called attention to what 

 m the Bible has to say about enemies. 

 W David often speaks' of them in the 

 "^ Psalms ; and in the imprecatory Psalms 

 he seems to be almost pleading with 

 God to send calamities upon them. Then he 

 rises above these feelings ; and in one place 

 he says. '' I will not be afraid of ten thou- 

 sands of people who have set themselves 

 against me round about.'' The first part of 

 the same Psalm opens up with, " Lord, how 

 have they increased that trouble me I" Are 

 lue now beset with enemies the same way V In 

 one sense I think we are. An hour ago, at 

 the noon service, I startled some of the 

 friends gathered there by soberly declaring, 

 " I am sorry to say, friends, that an enemy 

 is threatening us. We have talked of him 

 before, and now there is no (luestion but 

 that we have got to figlit him down."' 



As a matter of course, I soon liad the at- 

 tention of all gathered there, and quite a 

 few looked a little anxious. Perhaps some 

 of them wondered if we were not going to 

 revive the su))ject of the burning of the 

 warehouse, even though I had, a few days 

 previously, asked them not to talk about it 

 nor think of it. When they were listening 

 anxiously, to know wlio or what it was, I 

 spoke to them something as follows : 



" The enemy I mean js the chap who goes 



around to the different rooms and takes tools 

 away and does not bring them back ; or if 

 lie does bring them back they are found to 

 be damaged or ruined, and worthless. Dur- 

 ing the fore part of tliis week, Mr. F. missed 

 his hammer, with which he embosses the 

 rolls of our foundation-mills. This is very 

 precise and particular work, and it is quite 

 important that a hammer of just the right 

 weight be used. Well, the enemy carried 

 off the hammer ; but before we could find out 

 what he did with it, he brought it back and 

 laid it on the bench. Mr. F. enjoyed the use 

 of it for just two days, and now it is gone 

 again, and nobody can tell where the chap 

 took it. 



" This morning I noticed in the tin-shop 

 they were cutting the corners out of sheets 

 of "tin, for making the new honey-cans illus- 

 trated on page 274. by taking two snips with 

 the shears, instead of using a pair of shears 

 made expressly to cut out a corner at one 

 clip. I asked the foreman of the tin-shop 

 wliy he didn't use the regular corner-snips ; 

 and wliile doing so I took tliem down from 

 the nail where they hung. The steel was 

 chipped right out of the corner, making the 

 toolrfilmost wortliless. 



" 'VVHiy, Ned, how did this come about V 

 said I ; and I certainly looked anxious while 

 I spoke, and may be I looked a little cross. 



" 'Why, somebody grabbed them up to cut 

 off a piece of wire. And that isn't the worst 

 of it ; for they come in here when they want 

 a piece of wire, and always get the best 

 shears, because they don't know how to cut 

 wire, tlien go off and say nothing about it.' 



