750 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI^TURE 



DECEAtBER, 1920 







OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



MY good 

 friends, 

 familiar as 

 it has been to 

 me almost all my 

 life, I have 

 never yet under- 

 stood the full 

 a p p 1 ication of 

 our first text un- 

 til within just a 

 few days. I have 

 always taken it 

 as having a per- 

 sonal application 

 — that is, as re- 

 ferring to one 's 

 individual life. 

 Now, it is a good 

 thing to have 

 made your peace 

 with the dear 

 Savior and with the great heavenly 

 Father; and it is a good thing to be "hun- 

 gering and thirsting" every day for a purer 

 and cleaner life — cleaner in tliomjlit as well 

 as in word and action. But this new meaning 

 that has come to me is that we should be hun- 

 gering and thirsting for a hctter humanity, 

 and that we should love our neighbor as our- 

 selves, to a sufficient extent to be hun- 

 gering and thirsting for the glad time when 

 all humanity shall be cleaner and purer. We 

 should be hungering and thirsting and also 

 prayliKj, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be 

 done on earth as it is in heaven." I have 

 spoken about studying humanity in our great 

 cities, looking from one to another of the 

 great masses that throng the crowded streets. 

 I have been hungering and thirsting, some- 

 what unconsciously, for the glimpses that 

 would tell of better and purer lives.* 



Just about 25 years ago I visited the Bat- 

 tle Creek sanitarium. I do not need to say 

 Battle Creek, Michigan, for almost every 

 body knows where Battle Creek is. "Well, 

 I have been in touch, more or less, with the 

 great work being done there, not only for 

 25 years past, but for 45 and perhaps 50 



Blessed are they which do liunger and thirst 

 after righteousness ; for they shall be filled. — 

 Matt. 5:6. 



And there shall in no wise enter into it any- 

 thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh 

 abomination or maketh a lie; but they which are 

 written in the Lamb's book of life. — Rev. 21:27. 



Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and 

 that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? — I. Cor. 

 3:16. 



* Right here a letter has been placed on my desk 

 which is a fair sample of other letters that have 

 been coming continuously for almost 40 years. For 

 quite a time I gave them place in Gleanings under 

 the head of "Kind Words;" but lately there have 

 been so many of them that it is impossible to find 

 room for them, especially since Gleanings has been 

 made a monthly instead of a Semi-monthly. Well, 

 these letters emphasized what I have been trying 

 to tell you — that almost unconsciously, in this 

 Home Department, I have been hungering and 

 thirsting after righteousness. Below is the letter. 



"Mr. Root, I have never met you, but I take 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture, and I certainly enjoy 

 reading the Home Papers. They are the first thing 

 I read when I receive the paper, and they have 

 done me a world of good. I want to thank you for 

 them. 



"Hoping you may be spared to write many Homo 

 Papers, and with best wishes for you and yours, 

 I remain. "Your friend, "R. B. ELDER." 



Darlington. Pa.. Oct. 4. 1920. 



years. I k n o w 

 their great 

 sanitarium was 

 burned up some 

 years ago; and I 

 knew, also, by 

 reports that they 

 had built an- 

 other and better 

 one. For some 

 time back my 

 good friend, Dr. 

 Kellogg, at the 

 head of this 

 great institution, 

 has been asking 

 me to make them 

 a visit and see 

 how they were 

 prospering. A t 

 the close of a re- 

 cent letter he 

 writes as follows: 



I am glad that you have not forgotten my invi- 

 tation to visit us. I am hoping every year to have 

 the pleasure of seeing you here. I should like to 

 take some rides with you over our beautiful coun- 

 try roads and chat with you about a lot of things 

 in which, I am sure, we are mutually interested. 

 Be a.ssured we will take good care of you if you 

 come. Wa have had many visitors further along in 

 years than you. Your activities are so numerous 

 I always think of you as young rather than old. 

 Our good friend, Dr. Stephen Smith, still visits 

 us quite frequently. He was with us on his ninety- 

 eighth birthday, and expects to be with us on his 

 hundredth birthday. Your friend, 



J. H. KELLOGG. 

 Battle Creek, Mich., Aug. 22, 1920. 



Well, on Sept. 28 it was my pleasure to 

 set foot on the grounds of the new sani- 

 tarium. Just then something happened that 

 almost startled me. I did not know what it 

 was for a while. As usual I began studying 

 the faces and actions of the crowds of peo- 

 ple I met there, especially the boys and 

 young and old men. I glanced over them 

 with a feeling of joy, and began thanking 

 God, and I did not know just why, I did so 

 either. 



Now, dear friends, I am going to step 

 on delicate ground — maybe on holy ground, 

 as did Moses when he stood before the 

 burning bush; and my most earnest prayer 

 is that I may be enabled to do good and 

 not offend, even if I talk plainer, perhaps, 

 than I have done of late. Unconsciously I 

 was thanking God because, among the hun- 

 dreds I met there outdoors in the beautiful 

 sunshine, there was not visible a cigar, 

 pipe, nor cigarette. As I passed over the 

 grounds on the outside of the great edifice 

 there were no stubs of cigars, no half- 

 burned cigarettes, nor even ashes that 

 somebody had brushed off from his cigar. 

 When I went into the great building, then 

 into the office where guests registered, 

 there were no filthy spittoons. When I went 

 into a closet (or any of the many closets), 

 there was no tobacco spittle in the closct- 

 liovvls, nor :iny spattered on the walls or 



