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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



Except a man be born again, he can not see the 

 kingdom of God — John 3 : 3. 



Put ye on the new man, which after God is created 

 in righteousness and true holiness. — Eph. 4 :24. 



The above texts were suggested by a kind 

 letter that probably ought to go in the Roll of 

 Honor, or letters from the veterans, as it comes 

 from an old friend away off in Australia. The 

 following is the extract : 



Dear Mr. Root: — My dear friend — (allow me to call 

 you so, at any rate, for this once), in this age of new 

 lights, when the gospel of the three R's seems so very 

 unfashionable, it often makes me exult and almost 

 exclaim aloud to read in Our Homes the old-fashioned 

 truth. Why, you absolutely believe in conversion — 

 even believe men must be born again ! Go on, brother 

 beloved in many lauds by many hearts, and there will 

 be a great ingathering at the harvest home. 



Brisbane, Queensland, Feb. 2. J. G. Cribb. 



Yes, dear brother, I do believe in conver- 

 sion, and it wrings my heart with anguish, 

 sometimes, to see people treat the matter of 

 becoming converted, and of uniting with the 

 church, with such indifference as they often 

 do. Now, I am not going to make a fling at 

 the churches. It is quite common now, at 

 least with some of the new sects, to criticise 

 most severely the older denominations, and 

 for certain ones to boldly invite people to 

 break away from the church they are already 

 connected with and come out and stand with 

 them. I do not believe in this sort of doctrine. 

 I do not believe it is the right thing for a man 

 to put away his wife and try to get a better 

 one. You all know that, without my telling 

 you ; and I have sometimes felt as if with- 

 drawing from one church, that you may unite 

 with another, was a good deal in the same 

 line. If a man is united with a church, and is 

 not living such a life as a church-member 

 ought to, then let us rally around him, and 

 have him put on the new birth right where he 

 is. Let us get him to reform and put on the 

 new birth, if it should transpire that he has 

 never been born again. 



The dear brother who writes the above kind 

 words suggests that, away off on the opposite 

 side of this earth of ours, the idea of convic- 

 tion and conversion, with a change of heart 

 and a change of life, is in danger of becoming 

 old-fashioned. God knows there are many 

 evidences that it is getting to be out of fashion 

 on this side of the world. People unite with 

 the church, and God knows I am glad to see 

 them do so ; but it often seems too much as if 

 they were hiring out to work on a farm. They 

 do not say any thing about a change of heart, 

 or at most but very little, and we do not see 

 any particular change in their lives. If they 

 come to prayer-meeting they do not take part. 

 They do not report progress and tell of their 

 struggles with the adversary. Oh ! but there 

 will be struggles, dear brother and sister, if 

 one stands out boldly and fearlessly before the 

 world for Christ Jesus. There must be strug- 

 gles ; there must be fightings within and fight- 

 ings without. Oh how I do long — yes, God 



knows how I do hunger and thirst to see or 

 hear of the old-fashioned conviction and con- 

 version ! 



I am going to talk considerably about tobac- 

 co to-day. May the Holy Spirit be with me to 

 direct my poor efforts so they may do good 

 and not harm. Church-members used to give 

 up tobacco when they united with the church ; 

 but nowadays there does not seem to be much 

 said about tobacco. Sometimes they give it 

 up for a while, but pretty soon they go back 

 to the use of it. While I write these lines I 

 call to mind three different persons, friends of 

 mine, who, through my efforts, gave up to- 

 bacco. After quite a lapse of time, say two or 

 three years, each one of these three friends 

 thanked me something like this : " Mr. Root, 

 whatever happens I shall thank you, as long 

 as I live, for having induced me to give up 

 tobacco. My health is better ; I am a better 

 Christian, and I am ashamed now to think 

 that I ever was such a slave to it." Well, the 

 above is good, is it not? But, dear friends, if 

 I let the truth all come out I must say that 

 each one of these three is using tobacco to- 

 day. One of them used to have a class of boys 

 in Sunday-school. When he got to using to- 

 bacco again, his conscience reproached^ him so 

 that, when standing before those boys as their 



spiritual teacher, he gave up tobacco f No, 



no ! He gave up the Sunday-school class ; and 

 I fear he has given up talking in the weekly 

 Endeavor Society meetings as he used to do. 

 Church-members who do not use tobacco are 

 learning how to use it while the)' are church- 

 members. In a recent number of the Advance 

 it was suggested that the use of tobacco is on 

 the increase among ministers of the gospel ! 



Now, lest somebody should say I am hitting 

 a clip at other churches, and perhaps hinting 

 indirectly that my own church is better in this 

 respect, I think I had better say right out, 

 that the cases I have mentioned were all 

 among members of the Congregational Church ; 

 and, if I remember correctly, it was ministers 

 of our own denomination who are using tobac- 

 co more lately than they used to do. If I am 

 wrong, I hope that somebody who knows bet- 

 ter will set me right. 



Let me digress enough right here to ask the 

 question, "Why do people begin to use to- 

 bacco when they know nothing about it and 

 do not care for it? " Somebody ought to be 

 able to answer this question. If I should 

 make a guess I should say that nearly half of 

 the men we meet are tobacco-users in some 

 form or other. The drinking class all use to- 

 bacco as a matter of course. Then there is a 

 large lot of other people who use tobacco — 

 men of intelligence and culture. Why do they 

 use it ? Does your family physician use to- 

 bacco ? The family physician ought to be the 

 leader of community, not only in every thing 

 that pertains to health, but in that which per- 

 tains to morals. Any doctor who is honest 

 will tell you the harm that tobacco does to 

 the health of our people ; but even while he 

 speaks against it he uses it himself. Our 

 young men who go to college, and have grown 

 up in Christian homes, a great many of them, 

 sooner or later use tobacco. I have sometimes 



