1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



709 



s}»eaking, the ground clave asunder that 

 was under them, and the earth cpcned her 

 mouth and swaHowed them up, and their 

 houses, and all that appertained to Korah, 

 and their goods. And the earth closed 

 upon them. After that a fire came from 

 the Lord and consumed the 250. 



Now, some of you may say, dear friends, 

 that this was awful and terrible. Some of 

 you have censured God for creating human 

 beings to be destroyed in this way. My 

 friends, God did not and does not create the 

 evil that is in us. He did and does, how- 

 ever, give us knowledge and liberty to 

 c7i,oose between good and evil. Even to-day, 

 when men show this wicked and depraved 

 spirit to such an extent that they imperil 

 human life and pioperty, we not only shut 

 them up l)ut take life. Most of you have 

 heard, probably, of the gang of outlaws who 

 murdered detective Huligan in our neigh- 

 boring town of Ravenna. They deliberate- 

 ly murdered our officers of the law — those 

 who were appointed to protect human life 

 and property, because they did their utmost 

 to be faithful, and because they would not 

 give up their prisoner. When Blinky Mor- 

 gan had finally been put to death on the 

 gallows. I breathed a prayer of thanksgiv- 

 ing to God, and I do think it is the duty of 

 every Christian to pray that our officers of 

 the law may be successful in capturing 

 murderers and criminals ; and for myself I 

 feel it is right for me to thank God M'hen 

 law has triumphed and crime has been pun- 

 ished. 



To return to our text. These rebellious 

 spirits had the awful hardihood to say, in 

 the language of our text, " Woidd to God 

 we had died too " with the followers of 

 Korah. For the preservation of law and 

 order, it is absolutely necessary that pun- 

 isliment be inflicted^ If murderers and 

 rebels were allowed to go at large, neither 

 property nor human life would be safe. 

 Tlie Biole tells us that the law is a terror to 

 evil-doers; but the' law would have no ter- 

 rors were it not enforced ; and any man 

 with a spark of good in his heart is taught a 

 wholesome lesson by these scenes of the 

 punishment of crime. These people, how- 

 ever, were so depraved and hardened, that, 

 instead of being awed by the awful specta- 

 cle of being swallowed up by the earth, and 

 seeing fire come from heaven as a vindica- 

 tion of God's wrath and displeasure, they 

 deliberately told Moses they wished they 

 had cast in their lot with the guilty ones, 

 and had been consumed also. When Satan 

 gets full possession of the human heart, 

 there is no scruple nor limit to its foolhardi- 

 ness. 



And now for a practical application of 

 this lesson to onr own lives. Are we rebel- 

 ling against Giid"s plans and i)urposesV 

 Has God a plan and purpose for each and 

 all of us V Most surely he has, else we 

 should never have been created and placed 

 here as we are He must be dull indeed 

 who can not see the plans of the Almighty 

 in these things that are unfolding before us 

 day by day. Some of us have lost faith be- 

 cause, from our feeble and narrow stand- 

 point of view, we can not see the reason of 



these things. Why should there be drouths, 

 then floods and cyclones and hail and earth- 

 quakes V A good many of us are dissatisfi- 

 ed with our lot in life. How many of our 

 readers who till the soil for a living have 

 said, " Farming does not pay " V We grum- 

 ble at the high prices of things we have to 

 buy, and we get long-faced, and mourn, be- 

 cause of the low prices of the things we 

 have to sell. Perhaps I have hitched ihese 

 two extremes a little too close together, to 

 make a point on them. Did you never 

 think, my dear friends, that, when wheat is 

 only 75 cts. a bushel, it enables many broth- 

 ers of yours to thank God because it does 

 not cost so much to live as it used to V 

 And, again, when you grumble and groan 

 because you had to pay a dollar a bushel for 

 potatoes, did you never think how some 

 poor soul who raises potatoes for a living 

 would rejoice that he was thus enabled to 

 lift a mortgage, or pay back part of the 

 money he had borrowed to enable him to 

 underdrain his land ? Surely there is a 

 providence in it all. May be we are too 

 weak and small and feeble to catch even a 

 glimpse of the great machinery of the uni- 

 verse ; but even the feeblest one among us 

 can trust God, and praise him, whether the 

 prices go up or down ; wliether we have an 

 untimely frost, or beautiful fall weather 

 without frosts. When you get so near to 

 God that you can say, " Even though he slay 

 me, yet will I trust him," then are you in 

 harmony with the universe. Yes, even if 

 we have not had a crop of honey for three 

 seasons in succession, we can say, "• Blessed 

 be his name," and be happy still. 



Diiring the last day of our county fair, a 

 man stopped his buggy to inform me that a 

 handsome brood of young ]3rahnuiS had 

 taken up their roosting-place almost in the 

 middle of the highway. Their mollier had 

 weaned them a few days before; and when 

 it came night they huddled together on one 

 end of a small bridge ; but they were so 

 near the road that it is a wonder the buggy- 

 wheels had not cutthrough their little huddle 

 already. Huber and I tried to drive them 

 over to the barn, near the rest of the poul- 

 try. Poor, silly young chickens ! They im- 

 agined that Huber and 1 were trespassing 

 on their rights, and again and again tliey 

 put back to their chosen roosting-place. 

 Finally we were obliged to catch them one 

 at a time, and put them in a place of safety. 

 It was so far away that we did not think 

 they would find their way l)ack ; but when 

 night came again, there they were in the old 

 place of danger, and they stubbornly resist- 

 ed any efforts on tlie part of their best 

 friend and owner to put them in a place of 

 safety. Poor foolish chickens! But. dear 

 friends, are they any worse than poor silly 

 humanity, who stubbornly kick against a 

 kind Providence that woiild take them out 

 of danger and lead them tlirough green pas- 

 tures and beside still waters, yea, even to 

 the promised land— a land that tloweth with 

 milk and honey? My friend, when you feel 

 like grumbling and complaining, or even 

 looking cross, think of these words I have 

 been saying to you, and read over this his- 

 tory in your Bible that I have been telling 



