1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



955 



Duringr that summer day Bro. Park and I 

 talked about a great lot of things— how we 

 did our advertising; how we treated our cus- 

 tomers so as not only to keep them but make 

 each customer get more out of his neighbor- 

 hood, etc. Finally I spoke something like 

 this: 



"By the way, Bro. Park, there is another 

 queer thing about your management. You 

 not only sell seeds and plants for less than 

 a nickel, but, if I remember correctly, you 

 guarantee that all money shall reach you, 

 and that all plants shall reach your custom- 

 ers. Am I right about it, and do you still 

 keep it up?" 



He smiled, and said he did— that is, where 

 they send money according to his printed in- 

 structions. Then he added something like 

 this: 



' ' Mr. Root, I believe you too started out 

 with the idea of bearing not only your share 

 of losses and mistakes, but a little more. I 

 believe your customers soon became satis- 

 fied that you are trying hard to do right. 

 You paid a good many bills that outsiders 

 might say did not belong to you, and perhaps 

 some would have prophesied that you could 

 not keep on doing business in that way. 

 Well, you have stood it pretty well, haven't 

 you? You have enough of the things of this 

 world so you get along very comfortably. 

 Yes. Well, I too have paid bills where it 

 was hardly fair and right that 1 should do 

 so. But I have got along pretty well, after 

 all. I have all I need, notwithstanding 

 these losses and these burdens. Does it re- 

 ally pay to be small in business, and to make 

 a fuss over a few cents one way or the 

 other?" 



There is a great moral in this matter, 

 friends. I hardly need tell you that Mr. 

 Park is a Christian. He loves the Lord Jesus 

 Christ, and tries to make him his pattern in 

 business as well as every other way. His 

 hands looked satisfied and happy. He has 

 built quite a lot of pretty homes for them. 

 They have nice dooryards, pretty little gar- 

 dens, and an abundance of flowers, as you 

 may readily imagine. 



I almost forgot to tell you how many sub- 

 scribers during the space of forty years Mr. 

 Park has picked up for his journal. There 

 are over 400,000— pretty close to half a mil- 

 lion; and a good many of them have had the 

 journal so long that it is a part of their 

 home. They send in their subscriptions for 

 three, four, and five years in advance. I 

 presume a lot of you have it already. The 

 water power is secured by putting a dam 

 across a stream that comes down between 

 the beautiful hills of Lancaster Co. , and this 

 makes a little pond or lake toward a mile 

 long that twists about among the hills with 

 overhanging trees, and some of the trees 

 were basswoods, and were full of blossoms. 



Let me digress a little. The day before 

 my visit a man belonging to a section gang 

 was killed on the railway. He was too stupid 

 to get out of the way of a lightning train 

 that came along; ard that is not all. After 

 he was killed, not one of his comrades knew 



his name nor any thing about him. Another 

 one of that gang had been killed in a similar 

 way only a few days before that. The fore- 

 man is instructed to watch for trains, and 

 to give a peculiar whistle in ample time for 

 all of his workers to get out of the way of a 

 moving train. This poor man who had not 

 intelligence or energy of life enough to keep 

 out of the way of the train was a part of 

 humanity. I do not think he committed 

 suicide; but it would seem as if he did not 

 care very much if he did get killed. Whose 

 fault was it, or who is responsible for such 

 things? How does it come that humanity, 

 created in God's own image, should be so 

 widely different? This man evidently con- 

 sidered life no boon. He not only gave no 

 thanks to God for giving him a life to live, 

 but perhaps he recognized no God He may 

 have been partly intoxicated. We do not 

 know. Contrast his comparatively useless 

 life with that of such a man as friend Park, 

 or, if you choose, one like Edison, who has 

 been such a benefactor to the whole wide 

 world. What a difference there is in human- 

 ity, and even human beings who stand side 

 by side! Is it birth and education and other 

 advantages such as environment, etc. ? Not 

 so. Good environment is often a misfortune. 

 See what the sons of millionaires are doing 

 who have lots of money and nothing to do. 

 Edison came from very humble parentage, 

 if I remember correctly; and I used to read 

 about him in the papers when he was only a 

 newsboy. Abraham Lincoln had what we 

 might call no advantages, and so it is the 

 world over. If any boy has a poor chance, 

 it seems as if it were, as I have said, the 

 son of a millionaire. All the other boys, 

 especially those who have to work for a liv- 

 ing, can read the words of our text and 

 thank God for the possibilities and the oppor- 

 tunities that lie before them, especially the 

 boys who are just beginning to look out and 

 see what God is placing within the reach of 

 those who are born at the beginning of this 

 twentieth century. 



While at that meeting at Jenkintown one 

 of these old friends whose name has been for 

 many years familiar said he had something 

 to say to me that he thought I would appre- 

 ciate; and after he had said it 1 told him to 

 write it down and put his name at the end 

 of it. I think it will make a very good clos- 

 ing word for this Home Paper. 



The greatest achievements of mankind pale into in- 

 significance, and excite but little enthusiasm or admira- 

 tion in the minds of those sufficiently intelligent to com- 

 prehend in the slightest degree the magnificence and 

 grandeur of the stupendous works of Almighty God. 



AN APOLOGY TO OUR FRIENDS WHO CAME 

 FROM HUNGARY. 



On page 833 of our June 15th issue, after 

 making an extract from a Cleveland daily 

 about the boy who was drowned, where the 

 reporter said more than a hundred people 

 were looking on, I said: "The last sentence 

 informs us that the father and pnn were 

 Hungarians. Was that crowd all Hungari- 



