854 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



all his life ou a farm made the remark that he 

 had earned just about enough to educate his 

 children — no more. One of them bids fair to 

 become one of the leading ministers of the day. 

 Suppose this man should say that farming does 

 not pay, and keep in mind only the low level of 

 worldly prosperity in dollars and cents. He 

 who brings up, educates, and furnishes the 

 world with a man who can stand up before 

 men, even in our gi'eat cities, and teach men to 

 love righteousness and liate iniquity, has done 

 a thousand times better than if he had accumu- 

 lated — shall we say millions? Why, the com- 

 parison is ridiculous. If you, my dear friend, 

 have brought up and educated eVen one boy or 

 one girl, and have placed that child where it 

 will battle for the right and put down the 

 wrong, you have laid up treasures in heaven, 

 and that is exactly what our text means. 

 CjWhat does money amount to in comparison 

 with something that will help the world toward 

 righteousness and purity? In the effort to 

 educate your children you may have incurred a 

 mortgage that sickness or disaster may prevent 

 being paid, even at the time of your death. 

 Which is better — to die with your property 

 unincumbered, and leave your children with no 

 education, or to feel, in your dying moments, 

 that you have fitted them to take care of them- 

 selves, and battle for the right, even though 

 your legacy be a mortgage for them to lift and 

 pay ? Why, what boy or girl is there who 

 would not gladly and lovingly lake up the task 

 of paying off such a mortgage? The education 

 may have lifted them from darkness into light: 

 and a little earnest hard work that may be re- 

 quired in lifting the mortgage will give them 

 just the hardship they need to a perfect devel- 

 opment of character; and it often takes our 

 boys and girls not only from 20 to 30, but from 

 30 to even almost 40, to become so fully matured 

 and so rooted and grounded in industry and 

 good principles that they will be able to with- 

 stand temptation. Perhaps you have been 

 tempted to feel sour, and may be you have 

 caught the infection and contagion — for I re- 

 gard it as nothing else— so you are just now 

 ready to move oflf from the farm and go to 

 town. Don't do it. I am sure worldly prosper- 

 ity is not only more dangerous, but more dam- 

 arjiiig in the end, than what thousands regard 

 as poverty. '• What shall it profit a man if he 

 shall gain the whole world and lose his own 

 soul ? ■' 



Now then. Would more worldly prosperity 

 te'nd to the saving of your soul and the souls of 

 your children : You may say that you would 

 risk it, but J u'oi<i!d?i,'t. The present age and 

 the times seem to make the temptation greater 

 than ever before, to believe that money is the 

 one thing needful. Beware of Satan's prompt- 

 ings and suggestions, and pray that God may 

 give you grace to say. " Thy will, not mine, be 

 done." Very likely he lias given you just what 

 the Preacher of old asked for — '"Give me neither 

 poverty nor riches." 



r Please do not understand me as recommend- 

 ing mortgages as a, rule. At the present time 

 a mortgage on the farm or farming lands is to 

 be avoided, and to be incurred only as a last 

 extremity. But we should remember this: 

 There are things a thousand times worse than 

 a mortgage on your propei'ty. You had better 

 have a mortgage on your property, and lose it, 

 than to go through life living on what belongs 

 to other people— or, if you choose, stealing from 

 your neighbors in a way that the law can not 

 touch you. I have known people who awed bills 

 right and left — bills at the grocer's for sugar 

 and flour; bills for coal, etc., who could have 

 paid all these things by putting a mortgage on 

 their homestead. Better put a mortgage on 



your homestead and io-se it than to steal after 

 this fashion from your neighbors. Farming is 

 not the only thing that does not pay; and when 

 your grocer, through competition, sells you 

 sugar so close to cost that his profit hardly pays 

 for the string and paper to do it up, it is a 

 wicked thing to evade paying him simply be- 

 cause he can not collect it legally. In fact, you 

 have no business letting him try to collect it. 

 Yes, there are some tjiings worse than mort- 

 gages. Y"ou had better have your home mort- 

 gaged, and lose it, than to see your children 

 take the downwai'd road to ruin, because you 

 kept them out of school, that their work might 

 obviate the necessity of a mortgage. Letting 

 them grow up ignorant and vicious is worse 

 than to incur a mortgage and lose it. 



But there is a better way yet, and I am sure 

 that God will always direct us in a way that 

 we may avoid wronging our neighbors and 

 avoid keeping our children out of school, and 

 avoid mortgages. To reduce expenses, give up 

 luxuries. My good old mother used to make 

 starch out of potatoes, to save buying it; and 

 she used to twist up papers enough to last all 

 winter, so she could light the lamps without 

 using a match — thus saving matches. Of' 

 course, this was years ago; but getting back to 

 this sort of economy even now would help us 

 out of the trouble, and do us good besides. Of 

 course, we want to be reasonable and rational. 

 When matches are only a penny a box it will 

 not pay you to twist papers unless you are badly 

 out of work and want something to do. But 

 there are thousands of things that our grand- 

 parents did without, and were comfortable and 

 happy too, that we might do without, and find 

 more comfort and happiness. Of course, I do 

 not mean to recommend the shortsighted penu- 

 riousness that n\sults in loss instead of gain. 

 At one of the Endeavor meetings I repeated 

 in substance the point made by Prof. King. 

 Before I had sufficient time to sit down, the 

 president of the county union Endeavor society 

 repeated in clear ringing tones the first of my 

 two texts: 



For our light alfliction, whicfi is but for a mo- 

 ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and 

 eternal weight of glory. 



Now, do you not see the wonderful meaning, 

 and with what inspiration Saint Paul chose 

 those wonderful words? The fact that farming 

 does not pay, or does not pay very well, is really 

 our ■' light affliction '' — that is, we look at it as 

 an aflliction; but it is really for the time being 

 — '• but for a moment." as Paul has it; and then 

 just think of the grand summing-up — '"work- 

 eth for us" — that is exactly it. If we are pa- 

 tient, industrious, and faithful, the whole thing 

 works out itself. And what is the final ending? 

 Whv, "a far more exceeding and eternal weight 

 of glory." Y"es. "gZo?'!/" is the word. When you 

 keep on farming, even though you are tempted 

 to be discouraged, and think it does not pay, if 

 you endure to the end your reward comes — not 

 in finer houses than your neighbors have, nor 

 in broader acres, necessarily; but in seeing 

 your children grow up accustomed to work and 

 hardship. They learn ou the farm to brave 

 tlie storm and the wintry blast; they learn to 

 jrrefer the stimulus of sunshine, frost, and out- 

 door air, to any stimulus that saloons or wine 

 parties can give. They learn to tliank God for 

 the opportunities he has given them among 

 men. rather than because they are obliged to 

 work, and then take that other step and accuse 

 their neighbors of being cheats, and to wind up 

 by saying there is no room in this nation of ours 

 for honest men. 



Is it not sad, dear friends, to think there are 

 those among us who have become so deluded 

 and led away as to give voice to such senti- 



