ULKANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Our Homes. 



Shall wo roceivo nooi\ at the liami of God, and 

 shall wo not n'ooive o\ il?- Jon 2:10. 



Ill my last I lold you that I was greatly dis- 

 appointed to tind that tliP outcome, aftor all of 

 our pains, and success aftor our mishaps, was 

 that tho woll should givo us only luinl water. 

 I went up at different times and tried it, but it 

 was of no use. The water was not like that 

 from our other two soft-water wells. Very 

 reluctantly I was obliged to let the men take 

 down their tools and pack them up. Mr. H. 

 said he would gladly do the work for me, but 

 he did not believe we should succeed by going 

 any deoper, and so the matter was dropped. 



For a good many days I felt sad and discour- 

 aged whenever I looked up to the top of the 

 hill at the windmill and tank. Yes, whenever 

 I took hold of a piece of soap to wash my hands, 

 and commenced to make suds, before I realized 

 what it was I would get to wondering what 

 queer and unpleasant cloud had come over my 

 spirits all at once, or had given me a twinge, 

 as it were. Why, the sight of the soap and 

 water suggested the expensive failure of my 

 last operation of drilling for water. Something 

 over a hundred dollars had been paid out, and 

 we were no better off than when we started. T 

 thought of what I had been saying about sav- 

 ing money for the sufferers in India; and then 

 I thought of those several singular and appar- 

 ently direct answers to prayer, and I could not 

 understand why this should be the outcome of 

 it all. In fact, I had been thinking of writing 

 up this very thing as an illustration of how 

 God directs and helps those who put their trust 

 in him. But what point would there be in 

 it If the final outcome were just nothing at all 

 but a waste of money? I kept pondering the 

 matter; in fact, I am afraid I sometimes let my 

 thoughts get to planning in regard to that well 

 when I ought to have been listening to a good 

 sermon on God's holy day. 



Finally some one said to me that the foundry 

 near by secured soft water by eoing down deep- 

 er than we had drilled, and I had the well- 

 drillers put their tools back in place again, and 

 tried going deeper. We pulled out our tubing, 

 drilled the hole larger, and tubed off again to a 

 point low enough to cut off the heavy vein of 

 bad water. We succeeded nicely in this, and 

 soon had a well absolutely free from water, 

 down over a hundred feet. 



" Now," said I, " when we get water again it 

 will be soft." 



"But, Mr. Root, I am afraid we may not get 

 a good vein of water again," said Mr. H. 

 oBut I was very sanguine, and kept watching 

 hopefully. We got down 120, 125 feet, yet no 

 water. At about 127 feet I noticed a queer 

 smile on the driller's face as he re marked:! 

 □ " Mr. Root, we have not got any water yet of 

 any account, but we have some gas. How will 

 that suit you? " en ' '^ — - - -, 



D Let me explain right here,' that, when the gas 

 and oil excitement first broke out, nearly forty 

 years ago, 1 became greatly taken up with the 

 Idea of these new wonderful gifts that God was 

 giving as a reward for drilling away down deep 

 into the earth, and I very soon had a well of 

 my own where I was drilling for gas or oil. 

 During all these years, as you may know, I 

 have been watching with new interest all de- 

 velopments in this line; but never before had I 

 discovered or been the fortunate possessor of 

 natural gas on my own premises. All at once 

 the truth seemed to break in upon me. The 

 great Father, in his providence, had been plan- 



ning to give me this new -'happy surprise;" 

 and then 1 thought what a grand thing It 

 would be to write up the whole matter for Our 

 Homes. Now, I meant to do this truthfully 

 and honestly. I meant to write under God's 

 all-seeing eye, and to please him and not to 

 please mankind. Said I: 



"Mr. II., how do you know It Is gas? May 

 be it Is only a pocket of air, such as we found 

 before we struck the rock." 



" Oh ! I know it is gas well enough this time," 

 replied Mr. II. 



With trembling hands I got some matches 

 and prepared to throw a lighted one down into 

 the iron tube. 



"Look out there, my friend! You may get 

 more than you bargain for," said Mr. H. 



"Oh! I know how to manage these things. 

 I won't get hurt." 



But he cautioned me again. I then dropped 

 the blazing match into the tube, and dodged 

 back; and it was well I did. An explosion fol- 

 lowed, and a sheet of flame shot up several feet 

 high, and singed my whiskers just a little. We 

 put in a plug, and the gas burned several inches 

 high out of the top of the small iron pipe. But 

 my friend said there was not enough gas to be 

 of any practical use. He thought that, by going 

 deeper, we might get more. Before we started 

 drilling again, however, his quick ear detected 

 a faint bubbling sound in the well. 



"There," said he, "we have struck water 

 along with the gas, and it will probably soon 

 rise up high enough to stop the flow of gas." 



It did so to a partial extent. We decided to 

 keep on drilling, however, and went down to 

 155 feet. All this time I was, of course, build- 

 ing my hopes away up, and planning what I 

 should do with the gas, both at home and in 

 the factory. Finally we struck a considerable 

 vein of water; but it was salt water, and not 

 soft. Salt water would be of no use to anybody 

 unless I wanted to start a saltworks, and that, 

 of course, would be clear out of my line. This 

 salt water was of no use— not even for irrigat- 

 ing. Once more, and with a still sadder heart, 

 the tools were taken up and the derrick moved 

 away. I felt I had no right to invest more 

 money in such a scheme, when calls were com- 

 ing on all sides for help— help not only for 

 needy ones, but for those who were actually 

 starving. 



As we did not find the soft water, and as the 

 gas did not amount to any thing, of course there 

 was nothine to be gained by writing the matter 

 up for the Home Papers— at least, so it seemed 

 to me for a time. I studied over the matter, 

 and prayed over it, and now I feel at least com- 

 paratively reconciled to my failure with the 

 well; and I feel sure, also, that God was teach- 

 ing me an important lesson by the failure, that 

 he could not have taught me had he given me 

 success. 



And now you see the point of our text, dear 

 friends. Job said to his wife, when she gave 

 him evil counsel, " What! shall we receive good 

 from the hand of God, and shall we not receive 

 evil? ' Perhaps our readers had better look 

 up that second chapter of Job. When all his 

 success in life was suddenly changed to disaster 

 and trouble, his wife lost faith and advised him 

 to "curse God, and die." He rebuked her, and 

 called her a foolish woman, and then he gave 

 us the words of our text. 



Let us stop a minute and consider what the 

 result would be if God wera to grant every 

 request made to him In prayer. In mv talk 

 to you in our last issue I used the text, " What- 

 soever ye shall ask in my name, that will 

 I do." This very text has stumbled and 

 puzzled a good many, but it need not do so. 



