1878 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CTLTURE. 



When a man who has been converted puts 

 liis hand hito his pocket and hands out the 

 hard casli, for wrongs he has done years be- 

 fore, that single act is of more weiglit in a 

 community than all that cnn be written and 

 said, to discourage intidelity. When I see 

 people working hard to get converts to 

 tlieir especial creed, to their views of bap- 

 tism or observence of the .'sabbath, I think of 

 the words, 



For yc compass sea and land to make one preso- 

 ld te, etc. Mat. 23 ; 15. 



Again ; a scrap of paper was once brought 

 me narrating how a boy had gone to Sunday 

 School and on coming home had deliberately 

 taken an axe and chopped oft" his right hand. 

 This was in consequence of Bible teachings 

 and Sunday Schools, so tl;e paper said. 

 Well, if people in general are going to un- 

 <lerstand the Bible in that way. and act ac- 

 cordingly, I would advise burning up every 

 coi)y that can be found. But, if distributing 

 Bibles should have a tendency to induce a 

 man who is living with a woman milawfidly, 

 to put her away, even if she were dearer to 

 liim than his ovn right hand, I would say 

 give us the Bibles, by all means. 



If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it 

 from thee. Mat, 5 ; CO. 



I tell you, my friends, tlie time was when 

 the above words shone forth from my Bible, 

 as if they had been written with letters of 

 tire ; and I cannot Ijut think that God takes 

 *care that the purjiort of them is seldom, if 

 ever, misunderstood by those who are seek- 

 ing for the true light. 



The Bible is misunderstood by those who 

 willfully misunderstand it, but not by the 

 honest seeker for guidance. As I came 

 down street a few minutes ago, one of our 

 lawyers remarked that my boy in jail was 

 too big a job for Christianity. 



"You will believe in Religion then, if it 

 makes him a sober man ?" 



''No, for even Mahometlanism reforms 

 men." 



'•Does it? Then God bless the Mahome- 

 dans, say I." 



"And you would join hands with them in 

 the workV" 



"Most willingly.'' 



"And how about a nran that does not be- 

 lieve in any Religion T' 



"I would join hands with him t<xi, witli all 

 the pleasure in the world." 



Is tliere any need of clashing, o)- need we 

 spend time in arguing V An old and valueil 

 friend, who knows well my many weakness- 

 es, who is a sceptic, or at least has been, 

 writes the following. lie has taken me to 

 task several times so severely, (and if I am 

 correct, in regard to these very Home Pa- 

 pers,) that I was astonishe<l somewhat, jus 

 well as rejoiced, when the letter c<ame. 



I have just finished reading "Our Homes" in June 

 C LEAKiNOS. Your text and closing expression are 

 noble expressions. Wiiat a glorious thinp- it is to 

 Vio entirely absorlied in working with and for our 

 fellows! You have my fullest sympathies both in 

 your business nnd work for yoiu- fellows. I have 

 *)ften longed to be .iust so engaged, and have done a 

 little; and every time I i-ead j-our paper, I have a 

 fresh impulse to start right out here, to set in action 

 the latent good in 1 his sparsely settled and demor- 

 iilized community, where six pi-etty good men (their 

 homes are almost all in sight of mine) arc now in 



jail awaiting trial for the assassination ff a former 

 citizen of your county. I can sa J' of this as of most 

 wickedness, they, at least, hardly know what they 

 do. And if we could only have favorable influences 

 and stimulate and cultivate the intellectual and 

 moral powei-s, until they get the ascendancy iAcr 

 their sensuality, a revoluticin would be accomplished. 



We may differ in our theology, and question 

 whether man fell from an angelic pfisition to his 

 present one, or whether he is advancing from a 

 lower type to the angel wo would have him be, but 

 I think there is that in all men, in a higher or lower 

 degree, which, if placed under projx.'r intlucnccs, 

 will advance to much excellence. This is why we 

 should love our enemies, and lo'xe the wicked. It is 

 impossible to love an object that has no lovable 

 qualities in it. It is this undeveloped good in hu- 

 manity that we love and confide in. W^e may attrib- 

 ute our change to the influences (f an external 

 spirit, but there are hidden powers and influences 

 within us, that, if set to work with all earnestness 

 and meekness, will so revolutionize us that we are 

 almost surprised at ourselves. I see in you only 

 the qualities that always existed, only the better 

 i ones are in their highest activity. You arc the 

 same person that could not, in ylur wicked state, 

 exact the price of the watch spring of the man who 

 elid not get it. 



You suggest that you are not sectarian; I am glad 

 you exclude it from Gleanings. You, of course, 

 can not see that your pleadings for the sect called 

 Christian, can be such, and under the circumstances, 

 1 make no crmplaint. I do not object to it i'ariher 

 than is necessary for a rational, moral being, in the 

 present age, to do so in leaving off what is super- 

 stitious in this and all other religions. If Jesus 

 were here I certainly would be one of his nearest 

 comrades. 



When you say, "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, 

 and you shall find," and then tell us to use the 

 powers God has given us to search for the truth as 

 to the nature and use of things, and when you use 

 the more rational and practical term "impulse." in- 

 stead of the Devil or Spirit of God, I thiiak you have 

 hit on a strain that becomes your paper. 



Scenega, Cal., June 2:3, 1878. R. Wilkin. 



Is it not my duty to go on with the Home 

 Papers, when I get such lettere as the aboveV 

 I stated recently that I had received perhaps 

 a half dozen letters com])laining of the Home 

 Papers ; perhaps, I should have said letters 

 from a half dozen ditferent persons; for the 

 individual I have mentioned in the former 

 part of this paper has been writing letters 

 of this kind, not only to myself, but to oth- 

 ers who have forwarded them, cr extracts 

 from them, to me, almost ever since they 

 were started. These, of course, have not 

 been without their weight, and a frank and 

 honest young friend in'his vicinity has had 

 quite a correspondence with me on the sub- 

 ject. I, tinally, without any detinite state- 

 ment of what I knew, cautioned my friend 

 of his danger in having such a counsellor. 

 He admitte<l and deplored the fact, but said 

 the man was a most exemplary one in other 

 respects ; that he had seen him moved to 

 teare at such a trilling thing as the depart- 

 ure of a hired man. Oh. the subtleness of 

 sin ! I have se^n a man and woman both 

 moved to teal's, just from reading a touching 

 sketch from Dickens, when at least one of 

 the parties knew that the heart of a kind 

 and gentle wife was at that inomeni: break- 

 ing, and breaking, too, in a way that would 

 have made it a relief to have seen lier hus- 

 band laid in an honest grave, to have seen 

 him breathe liis last with the same, old, 

 childish iniux^encc that he possessed, when 

 he lirst won her girlish heart. My friends, 

 the religion of Jesus Christ and that Bible 

 you have despised, pulled that man from 

 the mire in which he had been for years 

 sinking, roused his lateiit capabilities for 



