1888 



GLEANINGS m BEE CULTURE. 



817 



the same way ; and, my poor doubting and 

 stumbling friend, lie is "just as ready to give 

 you the same kind of evidence as he was to 

 give it to every faithful child of his, thou- 

 sands of years ago. 



Another thing in Old-Testament history 

 that troubled me was this matter of the use 

 of blood — sprinkling it upon the clothing, etc. 

 In one place Aaron is commanded to take 

 the blood in a basin and sprinkle it upon 

 the clothing of the people as well as upon 

 the altar. These passages continued to 

 trouble me, because L could see nothing in 

 it except a superstitious rite, without sense 

 or reason. In our recent studies, tlie explana- 

 tion has come out something like this: 



In the childhood of the Imman family it 

 very soon beame necessary; to use object- 

 lessons as reminders. For instance : When 

 two people are making a trade nowadays, 

 they will often pay a certain amount down 

 to "bind the bargain "as we call it. One 

 says : "Here is a dollar to Iniid the bargain, 

 that there may be no backing out." The 

 one hands out the coin, and the other accepts 

 it, and by this act the bargain is ratified. 

 If there is any backing out, the one could 

 say, "Did I not hand to yoii a dollar to bind 

 the bargain, and didn't yon by that act of 

 accepting it consent ?" "Instead of paying 

 down part of the amount in cash, we often 

 resort to writing, and sometimes both par- 

 ties sign a piece of writing. Well, in olden 

 time a favorite way of binding a bargain 

 was to sprinkle blood upon the clothing ; and 

 we are told that, among heathen nations, 

 this practice is still preserved to a certain 

 extent. A spot of Idood, witnessed by both 

 parties, can be referred to as an evidence of 

 the agreement. Well, God made a good 

 many bargains and agreements with his 

 children ; and as they were notorious for 

 breaking these bargains, Moses was direct- 

 ed to ratify them, or to impress it upon 

 their minds by the time-honored custom of 

 sprinkling blood. They could readily re- 

 member this ceremony, or ordinance, and 

 the blood would be a remembrance or mem- 

 orial of the fact. In the same way, baptism 

 fixes upon the mind the fact that the per- 

 son has accepted Christ as the Savior. I 

 often ask the inmates of our jail, "Are you 

 a Christian?" or, "Have you ever been a 

 Christian?" Very often they can not re- 

 member very much of any thing. Some of 

 them do not know whether their parents 

 are living or not ; and sometimes they do 

 not know where nor when they were born ; 

 but I never met a man yet who could not 

 say at once whether or not he had been bap- 

 tized. In the same way, the sprinkling 

 of blood fixes the event, the promise, and 

 the agreement, in the mind so it can never be 

 obliterated. My friends, it is a grand thing 

 for'us to be able to know definitely what 

 agreements and promises we have made in 

 life; and when it is a convenant between 

 God and man, I tell you it is a sacred mat- 

 ter indeed. Nom', with these suggestions 

 does not this matter of blood-sprinkling 

 assume a far different phase V 



Anfl almost all things are by the law purged with 

 blood; and without shedding' of blood is no remis- 

 tiion.— Heb. 9:23. 



0a^ 0WN Jinnw 



CONDUCTED BY BRNEST E. ROOT. 



THE NEW FEEDER. 



§EVERAL of the friends who met me 

 at the national convention at Colum- 

 bus stated they were sorry I had stop- 

 ped this department. I wish to say 

 right here, that I have not intended to 

 drop it altogether, but there has been such a 

 pile of good matter that I decided to hold it 

 over for a while. If I omit this department 

 occasionally it will only be to give place to 

 other and more important matter. 



Now, then, to business. On page 304 for 

 1887, perhaps you will remember l)r. C. C. 

 Miller described, and illustrated with dia- 

 grams, a feeder which he had just gotten up ; 

 and although he had not then tried it he 

 was very sanguine as to its success. On 

 page 688 of the current volume he describes 

 how well he likes it after giving it a fair 

 trial in the apiary, and asks us to test it 

 here at the Home of the Honey-Bees. This 

 I proceeded to do at once. 



For the benefit of those of our readers 

 who may not remember just exactly how 

 Miller's feeder is constructed, I will remark 

 that it is simply a shallow box fitted to go 

 inside of a T super. The sides are double, 

 affording a passageway to the feed. The 

 feeder was made of i^j, stuff, and so con- 

 structed that the bees were enabled to gain 

 access to the syrup, only by the two side 

 passages. 



Desiring to have some feeders made on 

 the Miller plan, I showed a sample furnish- 

 ed by the doctor, to the foreman of our 

 wood-working department, Mr. Warner. 

 He at once appreciated some of its good 

 features, but at the same time his mechani- 

 cal eye recognized some defects in its mode 

 of construction— defects which seemed to 

 him great enough to render it difficult for 

 the average bee-keeper to nail them togeth- 

 er from stuli in the flat. Being made of 

 such light material, it would be impractica- 

 ble to send them made up, to ciistomers. 

 Another defect was, that it required wide 

 boards and the very best and clearest lum- 

 ber. Now, wide boards are expensive, cost- 

 ing more than the same amount of lumber 

 in two or three narrow pieces. Mr. War- 

 ner not only dispenses with a wide board 

 entirely, but has succeeded in improving 

 the feeder practically in several other ways. 

 Dr. Miller, in speaking of Warner's im- 

 provements, writes thus : 



Friend Ernest: 



I sent you a full desci-iption of my feeder, one of 

 the very few thing-s that I looked upon with some 

 little degree of coraplacency as being my own, 

 trusting that, as a matter of honor, you would 

 leave me in undisturbed possession of my hard- 

 earned laurel?; but, taking advantage of my trust- 

 ing nature, you have gone to work and so changed 

 my feeder that it will never again be recogni/.ed as 

 mine, and my fond dream that I might go down to 

 posterity as the inventor of Miller's feeder is rude- 

 ly and for ever dispelled. ]t makes me almost 

 wish I could stay where I am, and not go down to 

 posterity at all. * * * I am, perhaps, more 



