320 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the 

 Lord.— Psalm 1: 1. 



Some of my critical friends will tell me, 

 perhaps, that my text is not in the Bible, 

 and no doubt some of you will get your 

 Bibles and turn to the first Psalm to see 

 where I have blundered. In fact, Mrs. 

 Root herself said, when I told her what my 

 text is to be, that I did not get it right. But 

 I insisted then, and I do insist now, that the 

 first and second verses of the first Psalm 

 read, "Blessed is the man whose delight is 

 in the law of the Lord." By the way, what 

 a beautiful thought that is, any way! That 

 word "blessed"! how grandly it expresses 

 the thought! "Blessed" does not mean 

 that the man shall be successful in business. 

 Later on it says that whatsoever such a 

 man does shall prosper. But it is worth a 

 thousand times more to be "blessed" than 

 to have the wealth of Solomon without the 

 blessing. And that word "delight "—what 

 a bright picture that is of a real sincere 

 godly man— one who is a Christian through 

 and through! Do you say there are none 

 such nowadays ? my dear friends, you 

 are mistaken. There are many people whose 

 actual delight is in the law of the Lord; yes, 

 and people who meditate on this law day 

 and night. Of course, they are human like 

 you and me, and subject to selfish impulses 

 now and then; but we must make allowance 

 for them. Even the 'great Father himself 

 " knoweth our frame that we are but dust. " 

 But if we continue to delight in his law. and 

 meditate on it day and night, the Holy 

 'Spirit will help us to get out the remnants 

 of self and selfishness. 



I have talked to you, dear friends, a good 

 many times of late about the great achieve- 

 ments the world is making. I need not go 

 over the list again. You remember all 

 about it, especially when my talk culminated 

 in flying- machines. Well, J think I have 

 before said it made me feel sad to think 

 that there did not seem to be a like progress 

 made in spiritual matters. We have a great 

 lot of wonderful inventions— yes, startling 

 ones— but no invention to make men honest 

 —I mean honest of their own accord from 

 within. Why, it seems almost the other 

 way. The more great discoveries God per- 

 mits us to make, such as getting oil out of 

 the ground, lightning out of the sky, or, 

 perhaps, more properly speaking, from our 

 great waterfalls ; telegraphing without 

 wires; light, heat, and power without con- 

 sumption of material (radium) with all these 

 things there seems to be no growth in 

 that direction— that of being fair and liberal 

 to our fellow- man. Why, these great in- 

 ventions have actually furnished the means 

 to help men to grasp, and grind down their 

 poorer neighbor. 



When I was out in Arizona I told you 

 about a river called the Hassayampa. Well, 

 it is said that the man who drinks of the 

 waters of that river can never tell the truth 

 afterward. In reading the great dailies, 

 one can imagine a great lot of us (yes, I 

 mean us) had been drinking of the waters 

 of this remarkable Hassayampa. Now, 

 then, friends and neighbors, if we could on- 

 ly discover a river somewhere in the wilds of 

 Africa or the great West, with waters of 

 such virtue that those who drink of them 

 could never tell an untruth afterward, what 

 a glorious thing it would be ! and, may the 

 Lord be praised, we have got a glimpse of 

 that very river, even if it is not as yet f oun I 

 here in the United States. I have caught a 

 glimpse of it, and I hope that it has filled 

 me with more entnusiasm and joy than even 

 the flying- machine. But I am not done with 

 the flying-machine by any means. Perhaps 

 we shall have both right along together. 



Well, the glimpse of this river came to 

 me through a tract. I wonder how many of 

 you throw away the tracts or shove them 

 into the waste-paper basket without having 

 read them— these tracts that come floating- 

 through the mails. Sometimes I have been 

 tempted myself to say, " I wonder if these 

 well-meaning people have an idea that I 

 have no other business than to look over the 

 piles of tracts they send me." Well, I did 

 not say it, and I am glad; but I did say, 

 "God helping me, I will try to give a rea- 

 sonable amount of time to every tract or 

 circular of any sort that somebody thinks 

 best to send to me." I am very glad now 

 that I adopted the latter plan, for I have in 

 this way gotten hold of some wonderful 

 gems, at least they are such to me, not only 

 in spiritual matters, but in science and rural 

 industries, agriculture, etc. 



This tract which I wish to review espe- 

 cially just now is a description, by the Rev. 

 G. Campbell Morgan, D. D., of 'the Welsh 

 revival. It is a sermon he preached in 

 Westminster Chapel, London, last Chi-ist- 

 mas day. It describes a visit of his made 

 about that time. I do not know what has 

 been done through January and February in 

 that line of work, but perhaps some of our 

 readers can tell me more about it. You 

 have doubtless heard more or less about the 

 wonderful Welsh revival. Let me tell you 

 briefly what I get from the tract. These re- 

 vival meetings are kept up two or three 

 hours at a time. Now, do not express disgust 

 because you find it hard to sit in church for 

 one hour or less. In this new form of re- 

 vival the people do not all go at once and 

 stay till the meeting is out. They are com- 

 ing and going. In that respect it is probably 

 something like the noonday services in many 

 of our large cities here in America. There 

 is no evangelist and no minister. Evan Rob- 

 erts has, of course, had much to do with this 

 revival, but he occupies comparatively little 

 time. Their meetings are not in any one 

 particular locality. Dr. Morgan says if one 

 could be up the air and get a glimpse of the 

 places where revival meetings have started 



