GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



light (personating the good and gentle wife) 

 for perhaps many weeks or months; but when 

 our friend began to pray to Christ Jesus for 

 deliverance, Satan made a retreat as he always 

 does. Now, this friend should have let the 

 thing entirely alone when he once saw the 

 devilish side of it. He did not do so, and, 

 like Adam (and therefore Eve and all their 

 descendants since that time), he was sorely 

 punished. The new personality assumed to 

 be a friend of his, as I have said — a mutual 

 friend between him and his wife. He seemed 

 to be intelligent and high-toned; and, by the 

 way, the Devil must have gotten a very toler- 

 able education somewhere, coming down along 

 the ages. One may have every intellectual at- 

 tainment, and still be possessed of the Devil. 

 Our victim soon learned to converse with his 

 new spirit-friend at any time, even during his 

 work. They carried on mental conversation. 

 Perhaps many of my readers will say right 

 here, " Why, the man was crazy, or was going 

 crazy." Well, very likely this is true; and if 

 the Devil is not at the bottom of all insanity 

 he has at least a good deal to do with much 

 of it. 



I can imagine here that the arch fiend con- 

 cluded that he had wasted time enough on 

 our poor, honest, deluded brother, and that he 

 had better bring things to a crisis, and either 

 get him for his own or give him up. One 

 very cold night in winter this new friend 

 reproached him for having got his wife into 

 her great trouble, and was yet unwilling to do 

 any thing to get her out. Of course, he re- 

 sented this, and said he would do any thing 

 to help her. The question came, " How much 

 are you willing to endure for her sake ? ' ' 

 Like a true husband, he answered he would 

 give his life if need be ; that for her sake he 

 would "go through fire and water," as the 

 expression goes. The spirit took it up at 

 once and said, "All right. Hold your foot 

 over the glowing coals in that stove so many 

 minutes, and your wife will be delivered from 

 all her torture and suffering." 



Now, our friend should have rejected this 

 at once, and have called on Christ Jesus for 

 deliverance. But his wife joined in. He ac- 

 tually heard her voice, beseeching him in 

 agony to endure the pain for just a few min- 

 utes, just to rescue her from the fires of hell 

 for eternity. The Devil here betrays his ig- 

 norance, or, better still, willful ignorance, of 

 the real statements to be found in the Scrip- 

 tures. We might expect a man in the pos- 

 session of his senses to see the absurdity of 

 this whole thing ; but his wife's groans and 

 tears and screams, if I have it correct, pushed 

 him on. This transaction happened in the 

 middle of the night. Finally, in response to 

 the importunities of his wife and the friend 

 who stood by — that is, the spiritual friend — he 

 got up, put his naked foot in the stove, and 

 held it there until he became crippled for life. 

 I should hardly dare to put in print his de- 

 scription of the torture he felt during those 

 moments. Then the spirit said, "You have 

 gone through fire ; now go out and stand in 

 the snow so many minutes," for it was to- 

 ward a zero temperature. Of course, the next 



step on the program was suicide. That is 

 where Satan winds up, and never winds up 

 until he gets his victim, soul and body, unless 

 some power greater than his own intervenes. 

 This friend had been delivered by Christ Je- 

 sus once before. Now something whispered 

 that he was truly and unerringly treading the 

 road to hell. With his poor crippled and 

 charred foot he stumped back into the house, 

 fell down on the floor, and begged God's for- 

 giveness. He lighted a lamp, got his Bible, 

 and renounced at once and for ever Satan and 

 all his swindling gang. You see Satan had 

 put into his mind a distorted idea of sacrifice ; 

 that is, by giving his life, and by being volun- 

 tarily burned at the stake, as it were, he was 

 going to purchase deliverance for the one he 

 loved — one whom he loved, I fear, more than 

 he loved Christ Jesus. By the way, at the 

 time the demon suggested suicide he under- 

 took to cast ridicule on Christ ; and perhaps 

 it was through this blunder (for Satan does 

 blunder, thank God, at least sometimes) that 

 he had his deliverance. He was satisfied then 

 that the spirit that was leading him was really 

 at enmity with the Savior of the world. But 

 after our friend came to his senses, enough at 

 least to go at once to a physician's and take 

 treatment at a hospital, the Devil made des- 

 perate and terrible efforts to get him to com- 

 mit suicide. He told him he would be the 

 laughingstock of the world ; that everybody 

 who saw him stumbling about or walking on 

 crutches would find out all about it ; and the 

 sooner he put an end to his existence the bet- 

 ter; in fact, it was the only thing to do. Then 

 he realized, through the light of the Bible and 

 that of the dear Savior (now his only friend) 

 that he zuas on the verge of insanity. My 

 friend, you have during your life, perhaps, 

 had similar struggles with evil; but you know 

 nothing of the conflict this man went through 

 with to hold his reason. If he let go, Satan 

 would be sure to get him out of the world. 

 God heard his prayer, and warded off the in- 

 sanity that had been so well started. Through 

 Christ Jesus he braved it all, went and laid 

 the whole story before the nearest minister of 

 the gospel, and solicited his help, for he had 

 to have help in a time like that. His wife's 

 voice also was ringing in his ears, remonstrat- 

 ing and protesting. If ever a man lived who 

 found it next to impossible to say, " Get thee 

 behind me, Satan," it was this poor friend of 

 ours. He was tempted to throw himself be- 

 fore railway trains. All the methods of com- 

 mitting suicide that had been heard of or read 

 of pushed themselves into his mind. But he 

 held fast to special Bible promises. Perhaps 

 he realized, as few of us do, something like 

 the following: "When thou passest through 

 the rivers they shall not overflow thee." 



It was finally decided that amputation was 

 not necessary. The Devil kept nagging him, 

 advising him not to go near a Christian in- 

 stitution. Our friend actually begged the doc- 

 tors to give him morphine to see if it would 

 not drown his agony. Thank God, the doc- 

 tors were sensible. The morphine would have 

 given him over to Satan or to insanity, and 

 would have proved to be Satan under another 



