1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



105 



bags filled with hot water, and hot soapstones, 

 etc. My sleep was feverish, and disturf ed by 

 troublesome dreams. Of course, I called in 

 our family physician for advice. He gave me 

 some medicinal remedies, but s-aid he thought 

 the trouble all came from a certain tooth. 

 Then our dentist was called ; but he said it was 

 grip and not the tooth. My gums were all 

 swollen on that side, and the teeth were all 

 gold-capped, and it was going to be an exceed- 

 ly difficult and distressing matter to pull the 

 one the doctor pointed out, because it was one 

 of a bridge of three. My face was so sore 

 just then that just the thought of getting off 

 the bridge and extracting one of the teeth al- 

 most crazed me. When doctors disagree, who 

 shall decide ? I prayed over the matter, and 

 stuck to my hot-water treatment. 



During the night, when things were at the 

 worst, I remember feeling a good deal dis- 

 couraged. I had prayed again and again, and 

 was sorely tempted to think that praying did 

 not do any good, nor have any effect in the 

 matter one way or the other. I knew such 

 thoughts were wicked, and I begged piteously 

 to be lifted above them I prayed for faith. 

 Let me digress a little right here. 



In considering this matter of grip I had been 

 looking over the papers to see what the doc- 

 tors said about it, and I remember seeing a 

 statement that a lady in Cincinnati had com- 

 mitted suicide, evidently for no other reason 

 than that she was crazed with the pain of grip. 

 In my feverish state of mind that night, some 

 evil spirit suggested that it was, after all, quite 

 a reasonable thing to do. I have sometimes 

 asked myself the question, " How does any- 

 body know that the suicide escapes pain or 

 trouble?" This evil spirit that hovered near 

 suggested, " Why, there is no question in re- 

 gard to the matter at all. When one is dead 

 he does nut have the toothache, earache, nor 

 any thing else. Death is certainly freedom 

 from every ache and pain . It is rest and quiet- 

 ness. And quietness, even if coupled with no 

 consciousness at all, would be deliverance, say 

 to yourself, just at this time." But even if I 

 was dreaming I had sense enough to know 

 I was getting near to greater danger than any 

 bodily aches or pains could give. There are 

 other ways to get acquainted with Satan be- 

 sides drinking whisky. I groaned in anguish ; 

 I prayed more earnestly than I had before for 

 deliverance from all the powers of darkness. 

 And then came something that astonished me. 

 The feeling had been slowly creeping on me 

 that, although my prayers had been answered 

 heretofore, just now there was no answer. 

 The dear Savior was gone. The conscious- 

 ness of his presence, that had been with me 

 through all my Christian life, seemed to have 

 left me, and faith seemed dying out. At this 

 moment I either heard a voice speaking, or 

 words seemed unfolding themselves to my 

 imagination, at first dimly, and then bright 

 and clear. The words were these : " My God, 

 my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At 

 first, with the pain and misery I could not re- 

 call the circumstances, nor tell in what part of 

 the Bible the words were found ; but they 

 startled me because they s 'emed to picture 



with remarkable vividness the very thought 

 that was in my mind And then it burst upon 

 me that they were the dear Savior's words 

 just before he gave up his life — words that seem 

 to have been wrung from his very soul by the 

 terrible agonies he suffered. If the Father 

 saw fit to withhold from him, his only Son, 

 for a brief period, his wondrous love, could I 

 reasonably complain if he, in his infinite good- 

 ness and love, thought fit to give me a little 

 glimpse of existence without a sense of his 

 love and of his loving presence ? The answer 

 that I had received in this strange way gave 

 me faith and grace and patience to bear my 

 troubles all through the rest of that experi- 

 ence; and shall we not all remember that Jesus, 

 the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer, 

 did not have all his prayers answered ? That 

 is, God did not at once give him relief or did 

 not always grant all his petitions. Let us re- 

 member here that Jesus never asked any thing 

 for himself. He never performed a miracle to 

 feed himself when he was hungry. Our pray- 

 ers are almost all for self. 



Now, before closing let me turn briefly to 

 Dr. Dowie and his wonderful institution. If 

 I am correct, in his answers to questions he 

 says all pain is of the Devil, and that there is 

 no need of suffering from pain. Now, I have 

 never heard any one say that Dr. Dowie ever 

 fails in curing any disease or any patient. 

 Even he himself does not tell of his failures. 

 We grant he has had wonderful success ; that 

 many diseases have been cured by prayer, that 

 doctors called incurable: but in fairness should 

 not the public be informed of the failures as 

 well as of the successes? We often send dear 

 friends to celebrated sanitariums ; and a great 

 many times we are told the sanitarium can do 

 nothing because the patient was brought in 

 too late. Jesus never found a patient that was 

 too near death. In fact, it made little or no 

 difference to him whether the patient was dead 

 or alive when he was called. Now, these faith- 

 cure people certainly do not claim any thing 

 of this sort. Sometimes God grants their 

 prayers, and the patient is healed; and may 

 his holy name be praised for this ! But those 

 who claim to be so near to the great Father 

 that he heals diseases for the asking, certainly 

 must, in the nature of things, live very honest, 

 pure, transparent, and clean lives. They must 

 shun every appearance of evil or deceit. I 

 have sometimes thought that perhaps God 

 might, even in these latter days, see fit to com- 

 mission some child of humanity with power 

 to perform miracles ; but that child would 

 have to be more honest and pure than any hu- 

 man being I have ever yet seen or heard of. 

 Please do not think me too hard on humanity, 

 dear friends. God, in his loving kindness, 

 carried me through severe suffering. In his 

 loving kindness, as I understand it, he saw fit 

 to give me a knowledge by actual experience 

 of the suffering that many of us are called on 

 to endure, in answer to my prayer to know 

 what his holy will is in regard to using drugs 

 and even harmless liniments. So far as I can 

 gather, he seemed to sanction rather the use 

 of pure water, and showed me how to use it. 



I do believe God is pleased to have us call 



