1878, 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



309 



ur trnm- 



Charity sufiEeretli long, and is kind.— 1 Cor., 13; 4, 



the July No., you seem to have got into 

 hot water on account of muitiplicity of bus- 

 iness. I would sug'g'est to you two ruies 

 which have, perhaps, sug'g-ested themselves to you 

 already: do not attempt to fill any order not clearly 

 "expressed, which you do not understand yourself, 

 or which was evidently not clear to the writer, and 

 snake some clerk responsible for all oi-ders filled. 

 It should be his business to see that nothing g-oes 

 out without being compared with the order for it. 

 My own orders have all been satisfactorily tilled, in 

 all respects; but in an apiary, most persons order 

 only when the necessity is apparent and urgent, and 

 af the goods are wrong, the time for use has gone by 

 before they can be made right. J. H. Peiuce. 



Dayton, Ohio, July 5th, 1878. 



Many thanks, my friend, for yonr very 

 kind and timely suggestions. 1 had begun 

 something of the kind but the very difficulty 

 you suggest, was the one that stood mostly 

 in the way of the first part of your advice ; 

 Jiamely, that most bee-keepers wait until 

 tliey are in urgent need of the goods, and 

 then order. It would be quite an easy mat- 

 ter to say, as many do, "If they will do this, 

 mid then make mistakes in ordering, or give 

 incomplete directions, let them take the con- 

 sequences, and learn better". Othera will 

 say, ''It is just good enough for them", and 

 there let the matter drop. 



A young man in our town of intemperate 

 habits, lately, while intoxicated; hung him- 

 self, and was discovered by his wife after he 

 was stiff and apparently lifeless ; but, by 

 prompt measures, such as are used to restore 

 11 drowning person, he was restored. In a 

 few weeks he became intoxicated again, and 

 started out to get away from friends and 

 home, that he might make surer work of the 

 husiness. The case was one which illus- 

 trated so powerfully the way Satan obtains 

 dominion over a man, that I used to relate 

 it, to elicit the various opinions in regard to 

 the matter. One of our influential citizens, 

 gave it as his opinion, that the best thing 

 that could be done for him wjis to. let liim 

 hang himself, and get out of the way; and 

 the sooner he did it, the better. A Christian 

 woman, who held quite u different view of 

 such mattere, asked me if I would not better 

 call on him. I had before this decided on so 

 doing, but from the way in whicli he- had 

 met all advances toward acquaintance, I 

 was rather doubtful about the success of the 

 mission ; business also was so pressing that 

 I feared the "Growlery" department, should 

 I take many minutes, even to save a fallen 

 brother from suicide. After it was told me 

 that he had attempted it the second time, I 

 decided to go, even if orders were possibly 

 delayed a little. i 



I prayed God would open a way for me to 

 jret tehind that reserve he seemed to mani- 

 fest, and to indicate to me in some way 

 whether it was really a duty of mine, to try 

 and rescue such unfortunates. I found hiiii 

 in his door yard, and the moment he saw me, 

 he came forward with a pleasant smile that 

 I could not at tii-st account for. How loth 

 are we to believe that (4od answer our 

 l)rayers, even though we pi'ofes.s to have 



faith in Ilim. He soon told me all about 

 Jiis trials and temptations, especially after I 



I liad t^ilked with his wife and the children. 

 and soon it came out, that he had been try- 

 ing, for several days, to get up courage to 

 call on one of our ministers, and just as soon 

 as he caught sight of me, it occurred to him 

 that I would go with him, which you may be 

 sure I did most M'illingly. While there, we 

 knelt in prayer, and he was asked to join. 

 After some hesitation, and breaking down, 

 he said he could not pray unless he could do 

 it in his mother tongue, the German lan- 

 guage. Although I could not fathom the 

 words, I know that his humble prayer was 

 acceptable to his maker, and that he "is now 

 one of our most regular attendants at the 

 young people's prayer meetings, and at tlie 



\ Bible class. 



Now this man knew that, as soon as he 

 touched drink, .Satan at once suggested sui- 

 cide, for he told me as much ; antl he knew 

 his life was not safe a minute, if he trifled 

 with tlie poison. He had also considered 

 that a wife and two children were depend- 

 ing on him for support, yet with all this be- 

 fore him, he had again and again yielded. 

 Shall we have charity, love, and patience for 

 such erring brothers and sistersV or shall we 

 let them go, and tell them it is good enough 

 for themV 



Perhaps my illustration is rather a strong 

 one, but it is bright and vivid in my mind, 

 and will serve our purpose. Sliall we go out 

 of our way to serve those who'have brought 

 trouble on themselves by either carelessness 

 or wilfull wrong doing? or shall we let tlieni 

 take the consequences? In considering the 

 greatest good to the greatest number, it may 

 many times be best to allow punishment t() 

 fall on the offending party, for the sake of 

 tlie wholesome lesson it may prove to others; 

 and where the offence is an oft repeated one, 

 such as persistent intemperance, or things 

 of like nature, I think it is often the kindest 

 thing we can do to the offender, to let him 

 go to jail ; often the well meaning, but in- 

 considerate friends, who stand between the 

 offender and justice do a positive luikind- 

 ness. However, this state of things will sel- 

 dom apply to cases of business, such as 

 friend P. alludes to, and we will now get 

 back to our subject. 



A great many have ordered odd sizes of 

 section boxes, giving dimensions all correct, 

 but forgetting to tell us which were the tops 

 and bottoms, and which were the sides. The 

 orders were generally accompanied with a 

 request not to delay one minute, and some- 

 times the parties %\Tote that they had bor- 

 rowed the money to send for them, and un- 

 less received forthwith the honey season 

 would be passed. Where the distance was 

 not great, we sometimes sent a telegram for 

 information, but this way is ratlier expens- 

 ive. To await a postal card might result in 

 having the goods sent too late to be of any 

 use. It wouldjhave been easy to say, "Well, 

 I have done the best I can, and j^ou must 

 t-ake the consecpiences". The way I gener- 

 ally did, was to hunt for former correspond- 

 ence or orders, and see what size frame they 

 used, and then figured it out. In several 

 cases, I took the risk of guessing ; and, as I 



