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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



Praise ye the Lord.— Psalm 150 : 1. 



Just about three years ago I told you in 

 Gleanings of the series of meetings that 

 the Rev. A. T. Reed held at that Bingham 

 church near the cabin in the woods. I told 

 you that, although the people were back- 

 ward about coming up to the ' ' anxious- 

 seat," as it is called, or standing up for 

 Jesus Christ, yet we succeeded in getting 

 forty signatures to a paper that Bro. Reed 

 and I carried around. This paper read 

 something like this: 



" I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and 

 my guide through life; and I promise to do 

 as he would have me do so far as I am 

 able." 



I had hoped and expected that those who 

 signed that paper would sooner or later 

 unite with that Bingham church; but al- 

 though their good pastor presented the mat- 

 ter again and again, and gave an opportunity 

 for those who were willing to come forward 

 to do so, yet for quite a time nobody made 

 a start. A few of the young ladies did even- 

 tually unite with the church, but so far as 

 membership was concerned matters were a 

 good deal at a standstill at the time of our 

 recent visit. But at our first Sunday-school 

 I was told the new pastor had announced 

 that protracted meetings would begin just 

 one week later. This good pastor. Rev. Mr. 

 Shelly, has three other places to preach in 

 so he gets around to Bingham only every 

 other Sunday. Now, it was quite an under- 

 taking to start a series of meetings durin? 

 the month of August in that locality. Let 

 me explain why: 



Besides the ordinary farm work, such as 

 haying, harvesting, etc., there is just now 

 a large canning-factory at Traverse Citv, 

 and almost every farmer for ten miles 

 around that cannery has grown one or more 

 acres of string beans. These beans must be 

 picked and carried to the canning-factory 

 when they are just the right size. If left 

 on the vines for even twenty- four hours 

 longer than a certain time they depreciate in 

 value and bring a much lower price. The 

 small beans, say those weighing 300 to the 

 pound, bring a much larger price than those 

 that get large. As a consequence, every 

 man, woman, and child is pressed into ser- 

 vice to pick the beans when they are just 

 right. Boys and girls— perhaps I should say 

 girls particularly — often pick more beans 

 than grown-up people. They can stand the 

 stooping over better. These young folks 

 often make a dollar a day, and sometimes 

 $L25 and even more. Well, everybody gets 

 so tired at bean-picking that it seems a 

 pretty hard matter to ask them to go to 

 church week days. When I met brother 

 Shelly, and heard him preach, I decided 'at 

 once that he was out of the common run of 



ministers. He reminded me in many re- 

 spects of dear Bro. Reed. One great fea- 

 ture of his work is singing; and his good 

 wife, although the mother of eleven chil- 

 dren, has a remarkable gift in this line. It 

 reminds one so vividly of the methods of the 

 Salvation Army that I asked the question 

 whether she had not at some time in her 

 life been connected with it. She replied 

 that she had not. There is quite a family of 

 grown-up girls, and they all sing like their 

 father and mother, and. I may add, they 

 pray as well as sing. Bro. Shelly said, I 

 think at his first meeting, when objections 

 were made that it was a busy time of the 

 year, hot weather, etc., "Oh! we are going 

 to have a revival." 



As he had been recently called to take 

 charge of this little church I was egotistical 

 enough to think that, perhaps, I knew the 

 Bingham people better than he did, and 

 said to myself, "May be he will have a re- 

 vival and may be he will not; " but, of 

 course. I prayed that his efforts might be 

 blessed. I think Bro. Shelly will not feel 

 hurt when I tell him that, in the outset, I 

 was prejudiced against his way of having 

 such noisy meetings. Forty or fifty years 

 ago I used to attend (I am sorry to say, 

 sometimes, just for the fun of it) a good 

 old-fashioned Methodist revival; but I sup- 

 posed the shouting as well as loud praying 

 was mostly a thing of the past. As it was 

 a mile and a half through the woods, and 

 over tremendous hills, Mrs. Root did not at- 

 tend every evening as I did; but when she 

 did she was shocked at so much demonstra- 

 tion, and especially when there were several 

 praying at the same time. We discussed 

 the matter in the evening after we got home, 

 and both of us felt pained because the meet- 

 ings were conducted in such a different way 

 from what we had been used to, at least of 

 late years. I think I had better own up that 

 I considered for a moment not attending 

 them any more, as they were so different 

 from what I had been accustomed to. But 

 what would the people of that little church 

 and Sunday-school think of one who had been 

 so active and earnest in urging everybody, 

 right and left, to accept Christ and help 

 build up that little church? Why, I had 

 talked and urged some of my good friends 

 so vehemently that they had been almost 

 offended. Could I consistently stay away 

 from even one meeting? I finally said, 

 "Dear wife, we want to be sure we make 

 no mistake in this matter. Let us kneel 

 down right here and ask God to indicate to 

 us by the Holy Spirit what he would have 

 us do, or make it plain to us whether our 

 good pastor is making a mistake, or wheth- 

 er it is not Satan that is getting hold on our 

 own hearts by persuading us that these peo- 

 ple are too noisy and undignified. We knelt 

 down, and I very soon felt the Holy Spirit 

 in my heart directing me to be present at 

 every meeting and to take part in every 

 thing so far as I could conscientiously. From 

 that moment to the time I was obhged to go 

 back to Ohio, ten days or more, my heart was 



