518 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



0a^ peME?. 



Judgment will I also lay to the line, aud righteous- 

 ness to the plunimet: and the hail sliall sweep away 

 the refuge of lies, and tlie water shall overtiow the 

 hidingplace.— Isaiah 28:17. 



In our gardening operations — in fact, in our 

 general work throughout our grounds — there is 

 such a constant need of a sti'ing or a line that I 

 keep balls of string scattered all over the prem- 

 ises. When somebody wants to pick them up I 

 say. "No, no! let it be right where it is. We 

 want a line so often that we can not afford to 

 run to the tool-house every time one is wanted." 

 A whole ball of hemp string costs only three 

 cents: and it is cheaper to have them around in 

 different places than to run after them, \yhen 

 we first commenced gardening I bought an ex- 

 pensive line, with cast-iron reel and stake. 

 This was very handy, it is true: but it took so 

 much lime to go after it That I got into the way 

 of using just a simple stiing. Where they were 

 left out in the rain and sun, these strings be- 

 came rotten after a time, as a matter of course. 

 But a rotten string will do excellent service if 

 you do not pull it too hard. A man will be 

 cutting a ditch, for instance: and as it is only a 

 little way — may be by the side of the roadway 

 — he thinks he can do it well enough by his 

 eye. The consequence is an ungainly and awk- 

 ward piece of crookedness that pains me every 

 time I see it. Now. even a rotten string would 

 have saved this. It is just as easy to dig in a 

 straight line as in a crooked one. In fact, it is 

 easier and shorter. But it seems hard for the 

 average man to learn this. In our lessons in 

 geometry one of th(^ axioms was, that a straight 

 line is the shortest distance between two points. 

 Oh how I wish people could believe this! They 

 believe it in the abstract; but when it comes to 

 practical work, how we are pained constantly 

 by crookedness and awkwardness — yes, when it 

 would have been much easier to go straight! I 

 have sometimes remonstrated at the crqoked 

 work. Then the man takes his spade and* tries 

 to straighten the ditch. Very likely he makes it 

 worse. Then he suggests, "Oh! you want me 

 to take it off a little here, do you?" Then he 

 goes too far and makes it worse again. Very 

 likely he thinks I am hard to please, and may 

 be he says. "Well, where is the place where it 

 wants straightening?" I suppose I ought to 

 answer mildly, but 1 am afraid I do not always 

 do so: 



" My friend, neither you nor I nor any other 

 man can tell what will make it straight and 

 right, by simply squinting and tinkering at it 

 here and there. The only thing that can be 

 done is to stretch a line or string of some sort; 

 then take your spade and cut down close to the 

 string, being careful meantime that nothing 

 crowds the string one way or the other. In 

 fact, you must not hit the string with your 

 spade. Let the string alone: and if it is drawn 

 np just tolerably tight, it will of itself take the 

 shortest distance between the two stakes — an 

 absolutely straight line."' 



The line or string settles the matter — it is 

 positive and conclusive. It is exactly right, 

 and there can be no question about it. In fact, 

 there is no opinion in regai'd to the matter. All 

 the world is in agreement. There is a great 

 deal that is uncertain and unsettled in this 

 world: but there are at least a few things that 

 are absolute and always true. In our lessons in 

 geometry we had one that seemed to me tlien 

 a piece of foolishness. It was something like 

 this: " For illustration, let us stippose that a 

 straight line is not the shortest distance be- 

 tween two points, and that some other line 

 would be shorter.'" And then follows a demon- 



stration. Of course, it ends in an absurdity, 

 for it st<irtx in one. This form of logic is called 

 a reduetio ad (thsurdum. 



We all admire straight lines where there is 

 an attempt to make them straight. A few days 

 ago I was invited to take a ride on our new 

 railroad. The track was not only crooked side- 

 wise, but it was crooked up and "down: and we 

 went up as one does in a boat over the waves, 

 and then down again. We were also rocked from 

 side to side. Finally I sat at the back end of 

 the car, and looked back at the new track. It 

 was not yet finished ready for rapid and heavy 

 traific. Finally we cametoa railroad-crossing; 

 and while they stopped briefly I took a look up 

 and down one of ouvgreat railway lines — in fact, 

 one of the first that was built through the vState 

 of Ohio. Oh what a contrast! On this great 

 thoroughfare the tracks are worn so bright that 

 they were literally unbroken bars of polished 

 steel; and as they ran away off in the distance 

 in either direction, they were so beautifully 

 straight and true that it made a wonderful con- 

 trast with the neic road I had just been riding 

 on. Now, I suppo.se these lines of rails have 

 been for years just as accurate and beautifully 

 straight as they are now; but I never noticed it 

 before. The experience I had just been having 

 with crodhcdncss had enabled me to appreciate 

 the straight line. May be some of you, my 

 friends, may begin to suspect ere this, that my 

 remarks are drifting toward something of more 

 importance than nice gardening or even skillful 

 railroad building. It may have occurred to 

 you before to-day that this is a world of crook- 

 edness, crooked things, and crooked people. 

 Saddest of all, pei-haps, to a greater or lesser 

 extent, we have croohed Cliristlans. What a 

 thought! Lord, help us in our aspirations to- 

 ward perfection. Now. the question confronts 

 us, •' Has the Christian a rule or plummet to 

 shape his life by. as the gardener would shape 

 his trenches? Has he a line that can be 

 stretched so he may map out his pathway, and 

 have it not only fair to look on in men's sight, 

 but tolerably fair and pleasing in the sight of 

 the great God above?"' Yes. I am sure he has; 

 and the crookedness, like that with the garden- 

 er, is because he /orycts to apply his line. It is 

 because he tinkers in trying to make himself 

 straight — trying every thing first before he 

 stretches tlie line of God's holy word. You 

 may say there are differences of opinion among 

 even conscientious Christians. Yes, so there 

 are; but not in things of very great import. 

 The whole world agrees that a straight line, as 

 I have said, is the shortest distance between 

 two points. The whole world also agrees, or 

 at least claims to agree, to the oft-repeated 

 phrase, that " honesty is the best policy "—at 

 least, they say so in words. Then why do they 

 not say so more in actions? Is there any one 

 among us whose actions indicate every hour 

 and minute of his life that he fairly believes 

 that honesty is the best policy? Perhaps some 

 one says, *' Look here, brother Root, why don't 

 you yourself apply that line you have been 

 telling us about, and so show us yourself a per- 

 fectly straight Christian character?" I was 

 really afraid, when I started out, that some of 

 vou would crowd me into just that corner. 

 Now, if honesty is the best policy in all things, 

 of course I should be honest in my reply, and I 

 will try to be. Frankly, then, iiiy dear friends, 

 the reason why I am not a better man than I 

 am, is (to tell the truth), that, for the time be- 

 iug, I like a crooked line better than a sti-aight 

 one. In other words, when duty plainly and 

 clearly draws a straight line for me to live by, 

 inclination clamors so powerfully that only 

 crookedness comes of it all. Like the new rail- 

 I'oad, I have mapped out a line that is tolerably 



