1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1073 



OUR 



hoMes^ 



BY A.I. ROOT. 



Whosoever drinketh of the water that 1 shall give him 

 shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him 

 shall be in him a well of water springing up into ever- 

 lasting life.— John 4 : 14. 



The above text is one I have used before; 

 but an editorial in the Sunday School Times 

 has given me a new thought on the subject. 

 Here it is. See what you think about it: 



One has often heard of that spring, as sweet as any 

 that ever gushed from sunny hillside, which a traveler 

 once found by the sea when the tide had ebbed away. 

 Then the sea rolled in, and poured its bitter floods over 

 the little spring, hiding it out of sight for hours, wrap- 

 ping it in a shroud of brackish waters. But when the 

 tide ebbed away again, the spring was still pouring up 

 its sweet stream, with no taste of the sea's bitterness 

 in it. Such a spring should the love in our hearts be. 

 Though floods of unkindness and of wrong pour over 

 us, however cruelly we may be treated by the world, 

 whatever injustice we may have to endure from others, 

 the well of love in our bosom should never retain a trace 

 of the bitterness, but should be always sweet. 



It comes to me the more vividly because I 

 have seen springs just like that. Down in 

 Florida, where artesian wells are so common, 

 there are quite a few of them that are cov- 

 ered part of the time by the tides. You may 

 remember I mentioned one away out in the 

 ocean. The pure water, being lighter than 

 the salt water, it rises above it and spreads 

 out around it for quite a distance; and in that 

 locality one can dip pure nice drinking water 

 right from the surface of the ocean, without 

 getting any salt or brackish taste at all. I 

 have been for yeai's praying and striving for 

 such an attitude of heart that, no matter 

 what happens, I may be calm and unruffled 

 in spirit. I have prayed and striven, not 

 only to love my enemies, and to do good to 

 those who hate me, but I have tried hard to 

 do it right away. Right while the unkind 

 words were on somebody's lips I have tried 

 to show the world how a soft answer turneth 

 away wrath. But a good many times it has 

 been very poorly done, I must confess. 

 Most of the time this well of living water in 

 the shape of love towai'd my fellow-man has 

 been pouring forth to at least some extent. 

 When something unkind or undeserved or 

 uncalled-for comes very suddenly, the little 

 spring is not only covered up, but, I greatly 

 fear, it stops running entirely. When I 

 thought one of the boys in my Sunday-school 

 class said he hoped they would drop me out 

 of the flying-machine (the boy did not say it, 

 mind you— I only thought he did) I fear that 

 little spring stopped running altogether. 



Dear brother or sister, if you have in your 

 feeble way tried to be a Christian worker 

 you have doubtless at times met with a re- 

 buff or criticism that made you feel for a 

 while as if you would have to give up trying 

 to do anybody any good. Sometimes it is a 

 little thing said sneeringly; or Satan may 

 have persuaded you it was said sneeringly, 

 which amounts to the same thing. I have 

 known a good brother or sister to stay away 



from prayer-meeting, stop going to Sunday- 

 school, and perhaps declare they would never 

 undertake to teach another class; but what 

 would become of the world if we allowed 

 Satan to put us out in this way? We can 

 not always go unruffled. Sometimes the 

 little spring of "peace and good will" will be 

 checked for a time in spite of us; but as we 

 grow older we ought to learn by experience 

 that it only encourages Satan to push ahead 

 when we give up; and if we do this, and keep 

 right on, profiting a little by past experience 

 each time in the way of unkind clips, we 

 shall soon get so we shall not mind such 

 things so much. When I started these Home 

 papers, over 25 years ago, a good many times 

 I felt greatly hurt by unkind and severe 

 criticisms. But I do not believe I thought 

 seriously of giving them up while God gave 

 me life; but I have many times decided to be 

 more careful, to listen more closely and 

 prayerfully to the guiding influences of the 

 Holy Spirit, and eventually these criticisms 

 have resulted in good. On page 342 of the 

 Bee-keepers' Review for October, Bro. Hutch- 

 inson mentions a little incident: 



At St. Louis I sat down near two bee-keepers who 

 were having an earnest discussion. The first sentence 

 that caught my ear was as follows: 



"I tell you, we don't care what his views are on the 

 temperance question, and he has no right using space 

 in his paper to air his views on the subject. We buy 

 his paper for what it can tell us about bees, and not to 

 learn its editor's views on temperance." 



The other man replied: "I don't agree with you 

 When a man owns and publishes a paper, he has aright 

 to put into it what he pleases; and if wedon't like it, we 

 needn't take his paper." 



Of course, I did not feel much hurt at this 

 frank criticism, for the other man gave him 

 a very good answer; and I am glad Bro. H. 

 gave it a place in the Revieiv, for it has set 

 me to thinking, and I presume it has set a 

 good many others to thinking. I am glad the 

 temperance question was mentioned first, 

 because it gives us an excellent illustration! 

 The man or woman who is not always ready 

 with an outspoken opinion on the evil that is 

 the greatest factor in filling our penitentia- 

 ries and poorhouses, it seems to me would 

 hardly be up to the times. The editors of 

 our daily papers are nearly all up and on the 

 alert, and outspoken in defending temper- 

 ance. I wish I could say as much of some 

 of our magazines. Perhaps not all papers of 

 large circulation are defending temperance; 

 but the periodicals that are doing the most 

 good in this land of ours are certainly ex- 

 pressing themselves more or less freely. I 

 believe the periodicals that are doing the 

 most good are the ones where the editor 

 comes out fairly and squarely with his con- 

 victions. Occasionally we take up a paper 

 where we can not make out whether the 

 editor has any opinion at all. We often read 

 scientific news where we feel a longing to 

 ask the editor what he thinks about it. 



I once saw a brief item in a newspaper in 

 regard to a new flying-machine. It seemed 

 to me incredible that any thing like the 

 statement was going on so near the point 

 where I was then located. I cut it out and 

 asked the editor what he could tell me about 



