1877 



. GLEANIi^GS IN BEE CULTURE. 



333 



|Mf 'Jieiim. 



And herein do 1 exrvcise myself, to have always a 

 vonsclcncs v( id ot oflence toward God and toward 

 tnen.— Acts, 14 : l<i. 



a 



T our prayer meethip: ^^aturday afteruoon, 

 jr^-i just after the Nov. Journal had gone out. 



^^' I was surprised 1o hear our minister, af- 

 ter readinjr from some of our l)cst authors in 

 reffunl to he philosophy ofcor.scier.ee, read an 

 extract from Gi-EANiNGS. It was the opening 

 illustration in regard to the Sabbath day. As 

 ti matter cf course, I felt somewhat proud of 

 having my humble work placed side by side 

 with that of great and good men, who had 

 written in times past, and when I got liome, I 

 of course had to tell my wife about it that she 

 might rejoice too, that even our own Medina 

 people b»^gan to make- inquiries in regard to my 

 "' bee-paper," for it is a fact kind friends, that 

 many ii: our own town, do not even know of 

 the existence of such a periodical. Usually, 

 when anything is mentioned as having been 

 the v.'ork of our own townsmen, we think we 

 know them so well, that it is scarcely possible 

 they kn iw very much that we do not already 

 know. For this reason, Gleanings is very lit- 

 tle read or noticed in our own town. 



Well, taking this into consideration, I was, 

 as I h&\\- staled, very agreeably surprised, 

 when many of my friends gathered about me, 

 and seme of them asked where they could tind 

 the book containing the rest of "that story." 

 Well, what do you think my wife said? She 

 i^aid the rrtic'c was verj' good; in fact, one of 

 the best I had ev^r written, and that she 

 thought I above all others, was the very one 

 who u((de(l to read it. Now was not that 

 rather c(;ol V That I ought to read one of my 

 <ncn ariu-Ies? I stood in mute wcnder, of 

 course, and then mildly asktd. 



" What especial portion of it ought I to 

 read y" 



'• That in which the lawyer said you bad him 

 in a 'tight place,' when he had promised to 

 help pc rsuade the boys to stop swearing, and 

 theii rem.' mbered that he was addicted to the 

 iiabit himself." 



" Ye— e— s," I replied, as I began to look back 

 into my own " self." 



" Of course my husband you do not swear, 

 hut, as an illustration, you are very severe on 

 those who lorget and make mistakes, and yet j 

 jjou are verp forgetful, and make a great mary ! 

 mistakes. Of course you have many things to 

 oversee, ;!nd much care of various kinds, but ; 

 if you arc goirglo tench the boys to be accu- 

 rate and avoid making mistakes, ought you : 

 not to be very careful to make none yourself, ', 

 or else be more lenient with those who do, like ' 

 ijourself, ' make blunders '." i 



She had given me a sort of a side view that i 

 I had not befire taken, of myself, and as l! 

 looked round in that direction, I discovered a i 

 great dtal that neeckd looking after. I sat j 

 down and pondered, and the more I pondered, ^ 

 the smaller I felL When the lawyer spoke of 

 breaking ofl' swearing, I looked at it as a very { 

 easy matter ; and when I talked with the boys I 

 ill jail, :;b(.nt breaking off from intemperate 

 haijits, T assured them that God would give I 



them the strength if they would only come to 

 him humbly and ask him to help them. The 

 worst one of thetn, the skeptic, said he had 

 done so, but that the trouble was, he would 

 change his mind, at times, and would not want 

 to stop ; therefore, he had but little hope that 

 he should ever do much better. What a piti- 

 ful confession was this ; a human being who 

 had lost hope, one who had no faith in God, 

 and had almost lost faith in himself; I knew 

 the boy needed' the companionship of strong 

 kind friends ; and as he was one of the liist to 

 kneel in prayer at my last visit with liim, in 

 spite of his defiant scepticism before, I felt sure 

 there was hope for him. Was I the jiroper 

 person to point out the way to himV As I sat 

 and pondered, after my wife had forgotten all 

 about what she had said, it came up full and 

 plain before me, how I had on bended knee 

 asked God to help me to overcome that miser- 

 able despicable habit cf finding fault and 

 scolding, and yet — and yet— to tell the truth, I 

 fear that like my poor friend and brother in 

 the jail, I, at times did not want to stop. He 

 excused himself by saying that he inherited 

 his love of drink, for his father died of the de- 

 lirium tremens. Therefore, he must go on 

 drinking. I have sometimes been tempted to 

 partly excuse myself, by saying my father was 

 a man of the old strict " Down East " style who 

 had no pardon or compromise lor any one. If 

 a church member sinned, he would demand 

 that he be put out forthwith; for what busi- 

 ness had a man in a church who told lies, or 

 stole, or got drunk or — " got mad ?" No, no ; it 

 was right to get mad, for it was " righteous 

 indignation," but all the other things were 

 downright sins. It was not wrong for me to 

 scold the book-keeper, for it was only "right- 

 i eous indignation," ancl they should recognize 

 they had no right to make mistakes; besides if 

 '. I was a little rough, it was only a " way " I 

 j had got, anel I inherited that way from my 

 ■ father, and he was not to blame either, for he 

 inherited it from Ms mother. I remember the 

 ! dear good old lady now, as well as if it were 

 but yesterday. She was kind in her way, but 

 woe betide the son or daughter that did not 

 make their children mind ; and woe betide the 

 grandchild that betrayed, in her presence, any 

 of the sins that are so common all about us. 

 And the neighbors — had any one of them in 

 years gone by slipped and fallen step care- 

 fully. Novice ; that grandmother was carefully 

 conscientious, and her life was, in all proba- 

 bility, a far better record than yours. If you 

 inherited her unpleasant peculiarities, you in- 

 herited also her rigid and unswerving faith in 

 our Saviour ; and you are perhaps at this mo- 

 ment taking the credit all to yourself, that, 

 may be, belongs to the careful training given 

 her son, and so on, to you and your son. 



But even granting that we do inherit these 

 besetting sins ; what then V Shall the brother 

 who drinks and beats his mother, tell her, in 

 his better moments, that she must expect such 

 things, and has no right, ideally, to blame him 

 under the circumstances ? And shall I tell my 

 hands that I am laboring under a violent tem- 

 per that sometimes gets possession of me, and 

 that if I should in moments of anger discharge 

 them, they had better come back again next 

 day, for I am not really to blame for it? 



