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Gleanings in bee culture 



who attacked him were generally filled up 

 with drink; but the persecution became so 

 great against this almost single-handed tem- 

 perance worker that his best friends ad- 

 tnsed him to leave town. Here is an extract 

 from page 55 which shows that we have not 

 onlv a hero in our story but a heroine as 

 well. 



On the evening before, after the two attacks upon 

 me, friencLs went to my house to console my wife and 

 be with her. Now, they and relatives urged her to 

 persuade me to stop fighting saloons. ' But she an- 

 swered: 



" Why, that would be too cowardly to give up a 

 fight becau.se it is growing warm." 



"Yes; but they will kill him as sure as you live, 

 and you can't stand it." 



Very calmly and deliberately she replied: 



"Kill him? Let them kill him if they wish; I've 

 given him up. I'd rather be the widow of a dead 

 hero than the wife of a living coward! " 



."Vnd that settled it with me. .A.fter that I never 

 had enough nerve to act cowardly. With such a 

 woman at my side, what could I do but keep my 

 place on the battlefield, and stay there like an o.\ 

 between a yoke en one side and an altar on the other 

 — ready for service or sacrifice ? 



What do you think of a devoted wife 

 who can say to a mob of drunken men, " I 

 had rather be the widow of a dead hero than 

 the wife of a living coward "? 



As an illustration of the way in which 

 this godly man stood up before his enemies, 

 see the following from page 75: 



" Fred, I came to lick you! " 



" All right, just lick me if you think it would do 

 you any good." 



He then tried to provoke me into anger and get 

 nie into a fighting mood; but I jollied him all the 

 while and tried to keep him in good humor as long 

 as I could. Finally he thundered at me : 



" -Vre you ready ? " 



" Yes, I am ready any time; are you? " I answer- 

 ed, but remained seated on my stool and let on as if 

 T weren't paying any attention to him, and that, of 

 course, wasn't getting him ready very fast. You see 

 it's hard for a man to work up his fighting spirit to 

 the striking point when you try to make him laugh all 

 the time. Fighting and laughing don't mix very well. 

 It was like pulling teeth for that man to get started 

 in his fight ; but he finally mustered up enough cour- 

 age to raise his big arm and land a heavy blow on 

 my face sO' that I fiew off my stool into a corner like 

 a little squirrel, as he himself termed it. 



I wish to call particular attention to that 

 sentence, " You see it is hard for a man to 

 work up his spirit to the striking-point 

 when you try to make him laugh all the 

 time." 



This whole story reminds me most vividly 

 of some of my experience in years past 

 when I attempted to render good for evil, 

 and to love my enemies, and to '' do good " 

 to those who hated me. 



After the saloonkeepers with dynamite 

 liad to give up, and the town of Berne was 

 made dry, and good men were put into 

 office, the neighboring city of Portland, 

 Ind., was ajaproaching a wet-and-dry elec- 

 tion. Thev sent for Mr. Rohrer to come 



and talk to them, and he told liis story sub 

 stantially as given in the book, and caused 

 I'ighteousness to triumph. At the close of 

 his talk he clenched the nails as follows. 

 Here is what he had to say to the great 

 audience that packed the court-room: 



" I see this sounds to some of you like a fish story. 

 But do you suppose that I would make up a story 

 like this when I know that one of the three men of 

 whom I am talking is sitting in this audience and 

 is listening to every word I say? If I wouldn't be 

 telling the truth, wouldn't he get right up and call 

 me down as a bare-faced liar? " 



Then everybody looked around, and the men just 

 craned their necks to see where he might be. I asked 

 Mr. Rinaker to arise and tell the audience whether 

 or not he is one of those three men. 



Mr. Rinaker arose and addressed the meeting. 



" Gentlemen," he said, " I am one of those men, 

 and I can testify that every word Mr. Rohrer spoke 

 is true. He did put me out of the saloon business, 

 and to-day I am glad of it," and went on to tell that 

 he is now in the restaurant business and likes it 

 much better, etc. 



That was making a " hit," and it had the desired 

 effect. The ne.xt day the legal voters of Portland 

 signed the remonstrance freely, and by Friday fol- 

 lowing every ward in the city was made dry and the 

 saloons have never returned. 



You see he not only whipped the saloon- 

 keepers to a finish, but he demonstrated the 

 possibility of transforming enemies into 

 friends; and this ex-saloonkeeper actually 

 went with him and sat near him while he 

 spoke and told his story, and then rose up 

 and testified before the gi'eat audience as 

 above. Now one thing more: 



It might as well be stated, too, that Abraham 

 Bagley, the first man who assaulted me in my office, 

 and who was going to deliver me into the hands of a 

 howling mob, was the architect of the new Berne 

 Witness building, just completed and described in 

 the next chapter. I paid him $500 for drawing the 

 plans and assisting me in superintending the work, 

 for I bought the material for the building and hired 

 the laborers, and kept their time mostly myself, and 

 never had a quarrel with any one. 



That illustrates most powerfully the 

 grand truth in the text I have chosen. 

 Friend Rohrer prospered in his printing- 

 business, and in his temperance periodical 

 called the Berne Witness, until he bought 

 the premises where the saloons had just 

 been carrying on their hellish work. Not 

 only that, he hired the man who (years 

 before) first assaulted him in his office to 

 make the plans for his great printing-office, 

 and to assist in superintending the work. 

 Truly, truth is stranger than fiction. On 

 one of the closing pages of the book we are 

 given a picture of this building. To illus- 

 trate how God prospered the fearless young 

 printer, read the following which I clip 

 from page 142 : 



This, the first paper published in Berne, appeared 

 as a seven-column folio, and was printed on an old 

 Washington hand press. .V good friend of mine pre- 

 dicted that in a year the name of the paper would 

 be changed from " Berne Witness " to " Berne Quit- 

 ness;" but instead of doing that it was enlarged to a 



