1074 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15 



it. He replied, " Of course, it is true. Mr. 

 A. is quite a wealthy man, an excellent citi- 

 zen, and has been following this thing for 

 the greater part of his life." With this en- 

 couragement I made a trip to see the inven- 

 tor. In this case, of course, there were very 

 good reasons why the editor should not say 

 in print what he wrote me in private. Now, 

 there are other periodicals where you can 

 not for the life of you find out any thing 

 about the proprietor. You can find stereo- 

 typed notices that are scattered all over the 

 paper, saying, "We are of the opinion that 

 Mr. A. 's cough cure is one of the best in the 

 world," etc. But who cares for an editor's 

 opinion when said opinion is sold to anybody 

 for 25 cents a line, etc. ? Now, it is those 

 who come out openly before the world and 

 express their views on temperance and reli- 

 gion that get the unkind clips. You can 

 avoid them by listening to Satan when he 

 tells you you had better keep still. 



Years ago I started a mission Sunday- 

 school in an adjoining town where saloons 

 were rampant. Everybody was pleased, and 

 the school was a success. But one Sunday 

 afternoon, after the school was closed, I did 

 some mission woi'k that resulted in getting 

 a lot of saloon-keepers into a lot of trouble. 

 One of them, who had been on quite friend- 

 ly terms with me, came to me afterward 

 and said, "Mr. Root, when you came down 

 here and opened up a Sunday-school and 

 taught our children, and while you were 

 friendly toward everybody, and did not inter- 

 fere with things outside of the Sunday-school 

 work, we were very glad to have you around; 

 but I want to tell you that, if you get out of 

 your place, and stir up another such muss 

 as you did just recently, you had better stay 

 at home and attend to your own business, or 

 you will get into a worse trouble, and that 

 right quick— mark my words for it." 



Had I been alone in the matter, perhaps I 

 might have felt hurt, and concluded I had 

 made a mistake. And, by the way, I ivas 

 pretty much alone so far as human counsel 

 or help was concerned, especially in that lo- 

 cality; but the voice of the dear Savior up- 

 held me, and I remembered the words, 

 " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you 

 and persecute you, and speak all manner of 

 evil against you falsely for my sake. 

 Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is 

 your reward in heaven;" and I did feel glad, 

 and that spring of water kept pouring forth, 

 notwithstanding those harsh and unkind 

 words from one whom I had previously re- 

 garded as a special friend. 



After all, there is not so much danger of 

 this life-giving water being quenched by out- 

 side influences as those which come from 

 within. Jesus says, " Out of the heart pro- 

 ceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, for- 

 nications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; 

 these are the things which defile a man." 



All of my life I have been obliged to fight 

 uncharitable thoughts and feelings; for these, 

 if persisted in, will more surely quench this 

 life-giving spring than anything our enemies 

 or the whole world can do from outside of us. 



I am ashamed to say that, only last Sunday, 

 when 1 should have been listening to the beau- 

 tiful hyms of praise, my mind wandered from 

 one to the other of the good friends who sat 

 near me; and before I knew it I was dwell- 

 ing on their infirmities and inconsistencies.* 

 Finally I roused up and said, "Get thee be- 

 hind me, Satan;" but in a little time, back I 

 was at my old trick. Then I considered, and 

 said to myself something as follows: " Look 

 here, old fellow; if the readers of Gleanings 

 could read your heart now, as they read your 

 Home papers from the printed page, what 

 would you have to say for yourself? Here 

 in the house of God on this Sunday morning 

 you have been guilty of condemning first 

 one and then another until you had quite a 

 string of them, and looked down upon them 

 as if you were a great deal better." 



The picture came up so vividly and strong 

 that my mental prayer welled up, "Lord, 

 help!" and then I felt afterward like adding, 

 and truthfully, "May God have mercy on 

 your poor sinful soul." Before long, by 

 earnest prayer I gained the victory; and 

 when I felt love and charity for all in the 

 church that morning, then that little spring 

 poured forth its living waters, "springing 

 up into everlasting life." 



NOTES^IITRAVti 



■^ 



"THE CABIN IN THE WOODS" IN NOVEMBER. 



When we reached our place, about Nov. 1, 

 we were greatly pleased to find, as we had 

 found so many years before, vegetation 

 around the cabin almost uninjured by frost. 

 Although every thing had been killed through 

 Ohio and Southern Michigan almost a month 

 before, we found tomatoes, string beans, 

 and green corn in our garden; but we had a 

 killing frost a week after. They have had a 

 big crop of potatoes in the Traverse region. 

 There has been no blight, no rot; and with 

 the holding-ofl[ of frost, as I have mention- 

 ed, every thing was favorable. 



We found our nearest neighbor, Mrs. 

 Heimforth, with her boys, digging potatoes 

 on the top of the highest hill on the farm. 

 When I first got on to our place I said to my 

 neighbor Hilbert that the tops of the very 

 highest hills would probably be of little or 



* I suppose this uncharitable mood was started by re- 

 membering something I had just heard about a brother 

 in the church whom my eyes happened to rest on. The 

 statemtnt came direct, and the circumstances were 

 such that I supposed the story of his shortcomings was 

 1 irgely true. On Monday morning, however, when I 

 happened to ask the one who had been wronged some- 

 thing about it, I was astonished to find the man was en- 

 tirely innocent. There was nothing in it at all. This 

 illustrates how exceedingly careful we should be about 

 repeating stories of how a church-member (or any- 

 body else for that matter) has done something a good 

 man ought not to do. It seems as if one is really in- 

 jured by going over sensational stories about Chris- 

 tians, or say ministers, who are really untrue to their 

 .sacred profession or calling. 



