1884 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



281 



"She has them, anyway," Maria said. "She acts | 

 like a simpleton. If I were going to whisper and 

 laugh as much as she does, I should choose some 

 less conspicuous place than the choir." 



"Well,"Ermina said, "she is a simpleton; why 

 shouldn't she act like one?" 



" She is a member of the same church with your- 

 self," Tom said, pointedly; and Helen made em- 

 phatic response,— 



"What if she is? That doesn't insure perfection." 



"So I perceive. I was fimply interested in ob- 

 serving' how you all love each other." 



"I wonder who pretends to love her? I'm sure 7 

 never did." 



" But I thought that was one of the articles of 

 your creed?" 



"That only helps to show how limited your knowl- 

 edge of church matters ik. Maria, how many colors 

 had Laura Fox about her this evening?" 



The point I wished to cfiU attention to, 

 friends, was particulaily the uncharitable 

 criticism of the family circle. Not only was 

 the minister pnlled to pieces and found fault 

 with in a way that is really painful, but their 

 own particular friends who attended church 

 came in for their share ; and before they got 

 through they turned around and said bitter 

 and spiteful things to each other. The two 

 who were church-members seemed just as 

 bad, and may be a little worse, than the oth- 

 ers. You may say that this is fiction. 

 Friends, It is not all fiction. There is a ten- 

 dency to just such talk in our own family, 

 and i am ashamed to say it ; and for some 

 strange and unaccountable reason it seems 

 as if the temptation were greater after com- 

 ing from the house of God than at any other 

 time. I know it from personal observation, 

 and from what I have heard, that these sins 

 are common ones. When I first heard that 

 grand, wonderful sermon after I had chosen 

 Christ as my leader, a lady made the remark, 

 as she was passing along the walk, just after 

 she got out of church. — 



" Seems to me Mr. II. didn't preach to-day 

 as well as usual.'" 



I almost started in surprise and astonish- 

 ment. To me. the sermon had been the 

 most wonderful I had ever heard. Nay, 

 that expression does not half tell it. To me, 

 it was the most wonderful event of my life. 

 As I drank in his words, and realized that 

 it was my privilege to stand by him and 

 work with him, the How of happiness that 

 poured in upon my soul was beyond any 

 thing life had ever given me ; and yet this 

 other listener spoke of it as something ex- 

 tremely mild and commonplace, and not 

 even up to his average ! Dear friends, do 

 you not see that it is in the listener, and not 

 in the preacher V I came just on that Sun- 

 day, hungering and thirsting for righteous- 

 ness, and for the word of (iod, and I was 

 filled— filled in very truth, till I overflowed 

 with love and charity to all mankind. Poor 

 Tom ! he saw the jarring discord ; and al- 

 though his reproof was not given with a 

 Christian spirit, it was none the less true. 

 Although he was no professor, he knew that 

 Christ had said, " By this shall ye be known 

 of all men, that ye love one another." And 

 when one of his sisters remarked that their 

 friend Miss W. talked like a simpleton, and 



that the other took it up by saying, " She is a 

 simpleton ; why should she" not act like 

 one ?" he could not help replying that he 

 was interested in observing how they all 

 ''loved each other." Poor Tom was" un- 

 happy because his own conscience was 

 troubling him. He was disgusted, too, to 

 see how very little trace of the spirit of 

 Christ could be found in professing Chris- 

 tians, and these his own sisters. May God 

 help us ! I hardly need tell you that this 

 family, and especially these daughters who 

 were church-members, should have gone to 

 church praying for their minister, and hun- 

 gering and thirsting for the salvation of 

 souls. If the friend of whom they spoke 

 was really lidgetty and nervous, why, of 

 course she, poor girl, should have been 

 prayed for too. Tom was not given to 

 prayer ; but yet. poor fellow, he seemed to 

 know what was wanted and what was need- 

 ed. Jesus said, '' Pray for them which de- 

 spitefully use you and persecute you." We 

 who are his professed followers forget not 

 only to pray for enemies, but, I am afraid, 

 instead of praying for friends, we indulge in 

 fault-finding and criticism. '' J>ord, help ! 

 Help us all in our fearful lack and want of 

 that divine spirit that would lead us to peace 

 and happiness and all that is good." How 

 often I need that prayer, friends!. If we 

 ever offered prayer for those about us ; if we 

 truly loved humanity, how could we have 

 the disposition to see things as we do V 



"While we are on this subject, dear friends, 

 may I ask you if you are praying for your 

 pastor y or is it true, that you look for im- 

 perfections in him as well as the rest of the 

 world, and indulge in rehearsing his faults 

 and failings and weaknesses V God help 

 you to correct it if you do. If we are to pray 

 for friends and enemies too, then we are to 

 pray for everybody ; and if we can not pray 

 consistently without love in our hearts, then 

 we are to love everybody. " Thou shalt love 

 the Lord thy God," you know the command 

 is, and it also includes "• Thy neighbor as 

 thyself.'" What a wonderful thing it would 

 be, to be able to go through life with this 

 spirit of love and prayer for everybody ! for 

 do you not see how it would crowd out and 

 preclude all this uncharitableness and fault- 

 finding feelings and speeches V 



Sometimes when disposed to find fault, and 

 to pick at people's weaknesses and imperfec- 

 tions and shortcomings, I have mentally 

 stood still, as it were, and taken a view of 

 the promptings of the evil one. and then 

 turned and taken a view of what the prompt- 

 ings of the Savior would be. Satan would 

 prompt me to say, " Why, that man is a fool ; 

 he does not know any tliing at all. Did you 

 ever see or hear of so ridiculous an operation 

 as that V" 



About the time he has got so far as that, I 

 stop him ; and then, like the sculptor who 

 saw an angel in a simple block of marble, I 

 try to turn right square about and think of 

 the good qualities of this same brother. The 

 very thought of calling him brother, and 

 recognizing him as a fellow-traveler, does 

 me good to commence with. Then I try to 

 put it this way : We all have our different 

 ways of doing things. I have my notions of 



