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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



No good can come — at least no very great 

 good — from any change or any reform with- 

 out a better or a deeper foundation. When 

 we became pretty well acquainted I told him 

 to please use his pipe or cigar, whichever it 

 was, just the same during my presence as he 

 would in my absence. At first he declared he 

 was not going to do it, and I told him I could 

 not consent to stay and make myself so per- 

 fectly at home unless he would also make him- 

 self perfectly at home in his own house ; and 

 I felt glad to see him get his pipe and take a 

 smoke. 



Now, some of you may criticise me right 

 here. You may think I am backsliding, or 

 that I am compromising with evil ; but I think 

 you are wrong. I believe I was doing as Jesus 

 would have done. If you will follow his life 

 and read his sayings you will notice he very 

 seldom criticised. He taught great funda- 

 mental truths, and let the person make the ap- 

 plication. When he provided wine for that 

 wedding, I think it was along in that same 

 line. He for the time being conformed to 

 the customs of the people he was with. When 

 he dined with Zaccheus I do not believe he 

 found fault with the ways of the household, 

 even though many of them might have been 

 bad. He first wanted to gain the hearts of 

 the people in that home, and leave the result 

 to be accomplished with the Christ spirit in the 

 hearts of the people. Mr. Hilbert does not 

 use the foul-smelling tobacco that is to me so 

 exceedingly offensive. He said he could not 

 put up with it any more than I could. He 

 uses only pure home-grown tobacco- leaves. 

 When I first began to smell it in his breath I 

 was wondering what made it remind me of 

 something away back in years gone by. In a 

 little time I guessed what it was. When my 

 father used to take me on his lap, away back 

 in my childhood, and gave me a kiss, and per- 

 haps sing me to sleep, I always smtlled the 

 tobacco in his breath ; but it was not like the 

 tobacco of modern times. It was exactly the 

 same that I noticed when riding side by side 

 with my good friend Hilbert. Now, mind 

 you, dear friends, I do not love tobacco one 

 bit better than I did a few weeks ago, but I 

 hope I am telling the truth when I say that I 

 have learned to love humanity Diore. My 

 good old" mother used to say that we should 

 love the sinner while we hate the sins that 

 make him a sinner ; and this is what Jesus 

 taught. In our hungering and thirsting for 

 temperance reforms I am afraid we are some- 

 times forgetting ourselves, and. hating the sin- 

 ner as well as hating his sins. I believe Dr. 

 Dowie, with his Leaves of Healing, made his 

 greatest mistake when he began to call people 

 devils because they did not accept the teach- 

 ings of the Bible just as he does. I am afraid 

 some of our temperance periodicals, especial- 

 ly those that go into temperance politics, de- 

 feat themselves in the good they honestly 

 want to do by being too bitter toward the sin- 

 ner. Christian ministers realize everywhere 

 that almost their only hope of doing good is 

 to gain a hold upon those who are leading sin- 

 ful lives. Of course, we may carry this thing 

 too far. I once heard of a minister who learn- 



ed to smoke cigars, thinking by so doing he 

 could better win the esteem and respect of 

 some of his young men. Of course, he car- 

 ried the thing too far, and I believe he after- 

 ward admitted it. 



One evening friend Hilbert and I sat by the 

 fire. I was reading Xho. Rural New -Yorker, 

 and he was reading Gleanings. I do not 

 know what put it in my mind, but it occurred 

 to me that probably he was in the habit of 

 smoking his pipe while he read the papers ; 

 and I told him if that was his custom I wish- 

 ed he would light his pipe as usual. 



" Why, Mr. Root, if 1 have understood you 

 in times past you could not stay in the room 

 where anybody was smokmg a pipe." 



" Friend H., I want to assure you I can stay 

 in the room, and I shall feel more comfortable 

 to have you do in your own' home as you do 

 when I am not here than to have jou change 

 your habits or put you out because of my 

 presence. Please smoke your pipe exactly as 

 you do at other times," and he did ; and I fell 

 to wondering what the readers of Gleanings 

 would say could they have a picture of us two 

 sitting chatting as merrily as could be ; and, 

 to tell the truth, I did not feel any inconven- 

 ience. It made me think of my dear old fath- 

 er, and it seemed specially homelike. 



Now, dear friends, do not any of you rush 

 to the conclusion that I have changed my 

 mind in regard to tobacco. If I am correct, 

 Mr. Hilbert's boys do not use it at all. He is 

 exceedingly anxious that they shall irot use 

 it ; but in regard to setting them an example, 

 that is his affair and not mine. I told him, 

 before coming away, that I feared the habit 

 might grow on him. He uses only a small 

 amount of tobacco now, and that of a very 

 mild kind. If he chooses to give it up of his 

 own accord I shall be exceedingly glad ; but 

 I do not mean that tobacco shall break one of 

 the pleasantest friendships I have ever formed. 

 In our zeal to have the world conform to oiir 

 standard or notions of things we should re- 

 member there are worse things that afflict hu- 

 manity than the use of tobacco. The man 

 who makes a profession of religion, and never 

 pays his debts, and keeps contracting new 

 ones whenever he finds a chance, and with no 

 expectation of being able to pay them, is do- 

 ing far more harm in the world than the man 

 who uses tobacco. Jesus taught us to be con- 

 sistent ; and if we are going to be known of 

 all men as his followers, we must be consist- 

 ent ; we must love humanity more than we 

 love to see people accept our notions in regard 

 to things that are sinful. In this way we 

 shall become skillful and successful '■'fishers 

 of men.'''' 



even millionaires must stop smoking 

 cigarettes. 



We clip the following from a recent number 

 of the Rural New - Yorker : 



The chairman of the directors of the Union Pacific 

 Railroad has issued an order forbidding the smoking 

 of cigarettes by employees. George Gould is a direct- 

 or, and he recently came to a meeting smoking a ci- 

 garette. This is the way the chairman talked to him: 



