1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



235 



They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, 

 and lay them on men's shoulders: but they themselves 

 will not move them with one of their fingers. — Matt. 

 23:4. 



Since I have had something to say about 

 divine healing, a great mass of correspondence 

 has been sent me, indicating that there is a 

 deep interest in the subject. Periodicals ex- 

 plaining Christian science, faith cure, more 

 than I can read, have been sent in. A good 

 many insist that I am groping in midnight 

 darkness ; quite a few think that I exhibit my 

 want of faith by using even such a remedy as 

 hot water ; but people in whom I have most 

 confidence, especially the ministers of the dif- 

 ferent denominations, agree with me, I believe, 

 as a rule. I may be in darkness, but I am 

 praying for light, and I have faith in the great 

 Father above to believe that he will give it. 

 At the present time I can not agree with Dr. 

 Dowie that it is never God's will that we 

 should be sick. How could we appreciate 

 health or freedom from pain if we knew noth- 

 ing by practical experience of sickness and 

 pain ? I am sure God teaches me great lessons 

 by permitting me to suffer ; and while my fel- 

 low-men are obliged to suffer, I prefer to take 

 my share of it — yes, even though it makes me 

 at times groan with anguish, and causes me to 

 pray for deliverance. 



Since I have been confined so much at 

 home, and many times obliged to lie on my 

 back, I have been asking God to indicate to 

 me what I shall read. I can not bear to sit 

 still idly ; and while there are great heaps of 

 books and periodicals piled in upon me every 

 day, it needs wisdom to choose what to read 

 and what not to read. One Sunday, when it 

 began to be evident that I could not go to 

 church, I wanted something suitable for Sab- 

 bath reading. When I want something of 

 sufficient interest to make me forget my pain, 

 I often turn to a Sunday-school book, and I 

 have never yet been disappointed. I have 

 never found a book from our Sunday-school 

 library that did not teach good and wholesome 

 lessons. I wish I could say as much of the 

 books in our town library. Well, on this par- 

 ticular Sunday the only Sabbath-school book 

 in the house was by Mark Twain. I hope 

 my good friend Twain will forgive me when I 

 expressed surprise that any book he had ever 

 written should be placed in a Sunday-school 

 library ; and for a while I could not think it 

 quite the thing to read Mark Twain on Sun- 

 day. Then I remembered my previous expe- 

 rience, and concluded that the committee who 

 selected the books must have had some good 

 reason for selecting this one. 



The title of the book is, "The Prince and 

 the Pauper." I read it clear through during 

 the day, and was both surprised and delighted 

 to find that I could so thoroughly enjoy any 

 book under the circumstances. If I am not a 

 better man for the lessons I received during 



that one day, I certainly ought to be. The 

 author does not choose any text to start out 

 with ; but I have supplied a text. A sort of 

 legend, or tradition, we are told, furnished 

 the foundation of the story. If the book were 

 only published in a cheap form, I should de- 

 light in furnishing it to every friend I have in 

 the world, at a very low price. May be it is — 

 I do not know. 



Away back, about 300 years ago, by a queer 

 combination of circumstances a boy king was 

 transferred from the royal palace to the slums 

 of the city of London. For several days, or 

 may be weeks, he was obliged to put up with 

 the same sort of life that the poor degraded 

 outcasts have to bear. He was obliged to 

 submit to every form of injustice with which 

 the laws of England away back ground down 

 her subjects. In the back part of the book is 

 an appendix giving us true copies of the laws 

 and customs of that time. We sometimes 

 speak about asking a doctor to take his own 

 medicine. This young king was absolutely 

 obliged to submit to the punishment that his 

 laws were made to inflict on others. Perhaps 

 the laws were not of his own making ; but 

 when he knew about them he had been per- 

 mitting them still to stand on the statute- 

 books. The book is a sort of turning things 

 around. It says, in substance, what poor 

 people often do say to those who are away up 

 in wealth and high offices : ' ' Suppose you 

 change places with us just a little while, and 

 see what you think of it." 



Then there is another phase of this book 

 that took a mighty hold on me. This penni- 

 less youth, without a friend in the world, kept 

 proclaiming, "I am the king's son." But 

 everybody laughed at him, and called him a 

 madman. In one sense he was worthy of 

 being king — he took it all patiently ; he sub- 

 mitted to all their indignities in a way that 

 was almost Christlike ; but during all of that 

 terrible experience of suffering, oppression, 

 and wrong, he made mighty resolves to change 

 things if he should once succeed in getting 

 back where he belonged, for he never for one 

 moment doubted that he would ultimately 

 regain his crown and reach his own. Under 

 the circumstances it was grand and noble in 

 him to hold fast to the fact that he was king, 

 or, if you choose, the king's only son. I hope 

 my readers have read Pansy's conception of 

 what it is to be a " king's daughter ;" and in 

 like sense we each and all of us may be, if we 

 are not, sons and daughters of the king. 



I now wish to tell you how the book did me 

 good. When those terrible zero days were 

 upon us I went all over the factory to see if 

 the rooms were comfortable for the men to 

 work. Some of the drip-pipes were frozen up; 

 but we soon got them free, with the exception 

 of one radiator, or, rather, long coil of pipes. 

 The heat went only half way through ; and 

 the men who were obliged to work near that 

 west wall, exposed to the zero blasts, where 

 the pipes were cold, really suffered. I called 

 Harold to help me. He is the young plumber 

 I have often mentioned. We followed the 

 drip-pipe of this coil down through three 

 stories below, warmed it up with hot water 



