GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUUE. 



()3!) 



0ai^ JleiiEg. 



The wayfaring men, 

 therein.— ISA. 35:8. 



though fools, shall not err 



«FEW weeks ago, at our Saturday-after- 

 noon prayer-meetiiip:, as the weather 

 was extremely warm and our pastor 

 • was absent on his yearly vacation, the 

 attendance was comyiai-atively small ; 

 and as usual at such liincs, toward the close 

 of the meeting there came a sort ot pause as 

 if no one had <niy tiling in i)aiticular to offer. 

 Finally an elderiv gentleman arose, wliom I 

 had n(')ticed (piite regularly in attendance at 

 our meetings, but whom we had seldom if 

 ever heard from. He had l»een a member of 

 our church for perhaps acouple of years. I 

 can not recall to mind all he said, but some 

 of his remarks impressed me. He spoke 

 something like this : 



" iSIy friends, I am aware that I am only a 

 sort of 'dead weight among you here; but 

 for all that. I want to say that it is a pi-ivi- 

 lege for me to be among" you. even though I 

 sit still and say nothing.' I like to be here ; 

 I like to feel that people recognize me as one 

 who attends the prayer-meeting regularly. 

 I want to have the world know that I am 

 trying to be a Christian, and I want to have 

 them expect of me what we all expect of one 

 who professes to hi a Christian. I know 

 pretty well what a Christian ought to be. 

 We all know pretty well how we who profess 

 to be followers of Christ should deport our- 

 selves. Furthermore, tlie outside world 

 know^swhat is consistent for a Christian, and 

 what is not. Even the professed skeptics 

 judge pretty accurately what a Christian 

 should and should not do. And. come to 

 get right down to the main points, friends, it 

 seems to me that their ideas of such tiungs, 

 and niir ideas, are not very much different. 

 In all great essentials that go to make up a 

 Cinistian character there seems to be a pret- 

 ty general agreement, and I thank God that 

 it is so. I want to do better than I have 

 done ; 1 want to be one among you, and 1 

 want you to pray for me that I may not dis- 

 honor our common cause.'" 



I hardly need tell ^ou, friends, that the 

 above remarks (I presume I have not used 

 his exact words, but I think I have embod- 

 ied most of the points he made) gave us 

 quite a lift spiritually. Our hearts not only 

 warmed toward our hitherto silent brother, 

 but we were, as it were, revived all round, 

 and I have often thought since of his words; 

 that the essentials that go to make up Chris- 

 tian character are pretty generally under- 

 stood, and that nnl)elievers, men of the world, 

 and Cinistian people alike, ditfer so little in 

 opinion in regard to these givat ess3utials 

 that the difference is hardly worth conuuent- 

 ing on. It is true, that the enemies of our 

 cause sometimes say that we (piarrel among 

 ourselves because no two of us think alike. 

 They have some ground for saying this, very_ 

 likely, but I thank God that that sort of 

 work seems to be passing away. Christian 

 people are more united at the "present time, 

 the world over, than ever before, and there 

 seems to be a very strong tendency to entire- 

 ly drop these little differences of ophiion, 



and to go to Avork and do what needs to be 

 done, instead of wasting time in controversy. 

 We who love the I}il)le are perhaps inclined 

 to be harsh and uncharitalile toward those 

 who say Ave are not consistent ; and very 

 likely tliose who do vat love the Bibleare un- 

 charitable, and magnify our faults and fail- 

 ings, and perhaps pass by the good things 

 connected with the cluu-cli and church peo- 

 ple, and pick up small and comparatively 

 unimportant discrepancies. Of course, the 

 great wt»rk to lie done toward the saving of 

 the world is to do away with prejudice, and 

 stop picking at trilles. I think we need to 

 do this on both sides of the line. 



Christian work often reminds me of tl e 

 old farmer I have told you about, who let a 

 great crop of lioney go to waste because he 

 had to attend to liisfarm crops. He had a 

 farm of only about thirty acres, and all his 

 crops together (they were so poor and mea- 

 ger) would scarcely have been worth two 

 hundred dollars, even if harvested in the 

 very best style. lie had almost as many col- 

 onies of bees as I had, and had an equally 

 good flow of honey, and an opportunity of 

 disposing of it at the same market. My 

 honey sold for more than a thousand dollars, 

 but 1 could not persuade him it would be 

 wisdom to let his corn grow up to weeds, or 

 let his hay spoil, ratlier than use liis extract- 

 or upon his hives Idled to overflowing. It 

 was a thing uidieard of among the close far- 

 mers around him, to neglect crops, unless, 

 indeed, the owner were an intemperate man, 

 or shiftless beyond measure. Now, I do not 

 want to criticise and lind fault, for I often 

 look back and see I have been guilty of the 

 same kind of folly. We who profess to love 

 the Lord our God with all our hearts and all 

 our strength and all our souls, think that we 

 must neglect the work that lies before us, to 

 stop and argue, and oftentimes worry over 

 the way things are going, foi'getting that we 

 haveti'od's promise, and his guidc-liook open 

 before us ; forgetting the great work of sav- 

 ing the world tin-ongh the icgular channel of 

 human work, and straying awa>' into things 

 tliat even those who do not profess to love 

 the Lord i-ecogni/.e at once to be at least very 

 far from and foreign to the purpose. 



Now\ the question is, '' Is the way plain 

 for a Christian V " (.'an one who wants to be 

 a Christian, and who wants to be guided by 

 the Savior, be smc that he is on the right 

 track? I think, my friends, he can. There 

 are sometimes ditlicult places, and we some- 

 times have difhcult i)rol)lems to solve; but. 

 one who is willing to obev the teachings of 

 the Bible and the Holy Spirit will. I feel 

 sure, be very soon made aware of it if he is 

 straying. 



I have, as a matter of course, a good many 

 earnest talks with those around me. Many 

 times we do not think alike, even after we 

 have talked the matter over very thorough- 

 ly. Well, when I am talking with one who 

 is a Christian, I almost always have this 

 feeling ; in fact, I sometimes put it in words 

 like this : '' My friend, I think you are mak- 

 ing a mistake, and 1 feel soi-ry to see you so 

 strongly insist you an; doing what is the 

 right thing. But, I have this comfort ; I 

 know you are in the habit of going to God 



