568 



GLEANIKGS IK BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



Oh, 'tis not in grief to harm me, 



While thy love is left to me; 

 Oh, 'twere not in joy to charm me. 



Were that joy unmixed with thee. 



As I grow older, I have been led to feel 

 more and more that there is no abiding 

 pleasure or satisfaction in any thing this 

 world can furnish, unless the joy is in some 

 way mixed with love and praise toward God. 

 I have before told you that I sometimes feel 

 sad to think I have lost my relish for story- 

 books, as the children term them. But every 

 little while 1 am delighted to find that I have 

 not lost a bit of it, when the story embodies 

 that spiritual water; and every little while I 

 come on to a book from our Sunday-school 

 libraries that I enter into with all the zeal 

 and enjoyment I ever knew when in my 

 teens; yes, and more too, for I now feel that 

 there is a world to be saved, in a way I did 

 not then; and I know by my own experience 

 that these books, written by good men and 

 women, are telling thousands of that water 

 so freely offered, and to be had simply for 

 asking, by any tliirsty soul. Among my own 

 acquaintances are many young people, and 

 these young people are almost always full of 

 wants and longings; they not only want 

 something to do, as I have "told you so many 

 times over, but they want something to en- 

 joy—something for pleasure; and what a 

 pleasure it is when I find one after another 

 AVho has learned to build on that solid Rock 

 — who has learned to drink of that water 

 that satisfies ! How beautiful to contem- 

 plate, is the building-up and filling-out of 

 the character of a young Christian —when 

 he shows by his acts, " God first, and all 

 else afterw^ard!'' How safe we feel when 

 such a one is subjected to temptation! The 

 Avorld may look on and say, " That l)oy 

 will be spoiled ; they are making too much 

 of him ; they are putting too many responsi- 

 bilities on h'ini;'' but we who know that he 

 has been drinking of the waters of life, feel 

 that he is safe; he knows of a Savior's love. 

 He is among those who can say. in the lan- 

 guage of the little hymn, 



I am thine, O Lord; I have heard thy voice, 

 And it told thy love to me. 



The woman replied to the words of the 

 text, " Sir. give me this water."' Before 

 granting her request, Jesus put some ques- 

 tions to her, that showed her plainly what it 

 was she asked — in other words, what a great 

 step and change in her life would have to be 

 made before she could consistently ask to 

 drink of this living water. Even then, when 

 lier evil life had been pointed out to her, and 

 when she recognized that it was Christ the 

 Messiah who was looking into her past life 

 as well as her iiunost thoughts, she replied 

 evasively, holding fast to the creeds of her 

 fathers, to that empty creed which made re- 

 ligion an outward form, rather than an ex- 

 perience of the heart. AVe do not learn that 

 she said in words, "I have given up all and 

 followed thee," but she went back and told 

 her townspeople that Christ the Messiah had 

 come ; and we may fairly presume that her 

 sins were pardoned, and that she was saved, 

 l)ecause she accepted him as Christ, the 

 Savior of men. 



The question may be asked. "Can one 

 who is enslaved to the things of this world, 



at once find pleasure and satisfaction in 

 drinking of these waters of life?" Very 

 likely, he can not. A man who has a pas- 

 sion "for gambling, and who has no pleasure 

 in any other occupation, would, without 

 doubt, find a prayer - meeting,— even our 

 young-people's prayer-meetings that are so 

 full of life and happiness,— dull and insipid 

 — at least for the time being he would find 

 them so. What then V Why, my friends, 

 the thing to do is to go to the prayer-meet- 

 ing, and do the best he can, no matter if it is 

 dull and uninteresting ; even if thoughts of 

 his old pleasures do hang about and torment 

 him. The thing to do is to battle it down- 

 put himself in the path of duty as well as he 

 knows how; restrain and conquer bad 

 thoughts and old longings by sheer force 

 and strength of will ; take lip all these duties, 

 whether you feel like it or not. One who 

 proposes to be guided by his feelings will 

 very soon find himself in Satan's toils. If 

 the feelings prompt in the right direction, 

 all well and good ; but where these are dis- 

 eased and perverted, we have no more right 

 to consider them a safe guide, than that a 

 runaway horse should be considered a safe 

 animal for the children to drive. Sometimes, 

 I believe, new converts turn over at once so 

 thoroughly that they find pleasure and joy in 

 right thoughts and "right actions from the 

 commencement. But I believe such cases 

 are not the rule. Buildings are not to be 

 constructed without hard work and heavy 

 lifting and severe toil; neither can Christian 

 character be built in any other way; and one 

 who starts out to quench his thirst with this 

 water that Christ shall give, will very likely 

 find, for a time, that he has a battle before 

 him. It is true, we have longings for that 

 which is pure and good, and most men do at 

 times, if not all the time, have a hungering 

 and thirsting after righteousness. The 

 longings of a child for that which is evil are 

 not often very strong to commence with, 

 although there may be inherited appetites 

 and passions; but if a child grows up hav- 

 ing his own way, pretty soon appetites and 

 passions are formed, and he soon finds 

 himself hungering and thirsting, not after 

 righteousness, but evil. Who is there among 

 us who has not at some time or other in life 

 felt this? Now, Jesus does not say that the 

 water he offers will be more refreshing or 

 delicious at the start than any thing you 

 ever tasted before. He simply says, that 

 after drinking of ''the water that I shall 

 give him," one shall never thirst; that is, it 

 shall eventually prove satisfying; no shame 

 or remorse shall be mingled Avith it; and 

 afterward the one who continues to drink of 

 these waters, and only these, will find them 

 springing up into everlasting life. He will 

 find in his own experience something that 

 tells him of the joys that are reserved for 

 those who labor to do the Master's will. 



Almost ever since I commenced studying 

 the character of Christ our Lord, I have 

 been impressed with the thought, as I have 

 often told you, that Jesus, when in his 

 childhood, was nuich like other children- 

 much as we are or have been, and the Father 

 unfolded to him, little by little, his plans 

 and purposes for the redemption of mankind; 



