1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



419 



so long as breath shall last, and also a i)ict- 

 ure of one who rebels, against any sucli 

 "bondage," as he is apt to call it. Is it bond- 

 age V W ho was the slave ? The one who 

 stood by the splintered door, speaking bitter 

 words to his wife and children, or the man 

 on his knees, at his bedside, promising his 

 Savior in even qvuet tones, to ti'y to be gen- 

 tle, and just to all men, to forgive, as he 

 hoped to be forgiven, and pleading for a 

 strength to conquer, which he knows he hos 

 not got naturally. 



Another year has gone, and the time has 

 come to bid adieu to a great many of you 

 perhaps. You have been kind and forbear- 

 ing with me, and have generously given me 

 the means, with which to go on with this 

 work, which, I hope, is to benefit not only 

 myself but all of you. God has promised to 

 give us every thing we want or need, and 

 that every thing shall be revealed to us, his 

 children, as in the language of my opening 

 text, if we are only faithful and obedient, 

 and it can be given us without doing us 

 harm. Suppose the morning after I smashed 

 the door down I had been given $500 ; do 

 you suppose it would have made me better V 

 Suppose Gleanings had suddenly increased 

 to double its number of subscribers ; would 

 it have done me harm or good V I tell you it 

 would have made me a bad man quicker 

 than anything else that coidd have hap- 

 pened. Go to the boy who is too lazy to 

 work, and who is puffing away at a cigar, 

 lounging on the streets, and give him money, 

 and see what the effect will be. Will "it 

 make him industrious? If followed up, it 

 would very likely send him to the peniten- 

 tiary. Now God is watching you and I; 

 He is anxious to have us good men and wo- 

 men, and when he sees that money will help 

 us to be good, that we will make a good use 

 of it, he will send it without stint. If he sees 

 we use it to do good with, and not to clothe 

 and tix up our poor selves, it will come in 

 smns untold. Many of you know how he 

 gave the money to Mueller to build those 

 Orphan Asylums, until more than a million 

 of dollars had been expended, and it all came 

 in answers to prayer. How many men liave 

 we in the Avorld who could be trusted with 

 money in that way V Would it do for God to 

 send it to you or me in that way ? What is 

 the use of money? Tlie boys will say "To 

 have fun with" ; I do not know but the boys 

 are somewhere near right. I )id Mueller have 

 fiui in clothing and educating all those or- 

 phans ? A few days ago, he said that he 

 grew more joyous every year, as he grew 

 older ; that at 30, he was more joyous than at 

 20; at 40, more joyous than at 80; at 50, more 

 joyous still ; and at 60, more joyous than he 

 had ever been before in his life. I can read- 

 ily see how this hapi)iness may grow, and de- 

 velop, until no tongue can express the joy- 

 fulness of such a sold, when summoned to 

 meet the great Being, for whom he has lived 

 and worked all these years. 



I used to swear once, when very angry ; 

 yes, even since I have been sending ycm 

 Gleanings, month by month. I used some- 

 times to use all the wicked words I ever knew 

 or had heard of. I well know, too, the fear- 



fully despondent moods that used to come 

 over me tlien. Do you know what it is, my 

 friend, to hate the sight of every object on 

 the face of the earth? to wish you had nev- 

 er been born? to be aggravated beyond 

 measure at every word you hear spoken? to 

 feel like cursing everything your hands 

 touched, and that all mankind were a pack 

 of fools, thieves, ungainly idiots, etc., and 

 that it would be relief unspeakable, could 

 you get millions of miles away from the 

 whole of them? If so, you have probably 

 had a slight foretaste of hell here on earth. 

 I well remember all about it, but I do not 

 get much of a glimpse of such feelings now- 

 adays; at least, never when I am in the mis- 

 sion work. 



A few days ago, I was so much annoyed 

 by cigar stumps and tobacco juice on the 

 floor of our new factory, that I had a card 

 put up, welcoming visitors, but requesting 

 them to throw away the cigars, and spit out 

 their tobacco, before coming in. I i)resume 

 it Avas a little unwise, for on Monday morn- 

 ing, I found the front door perfectly covered 

 Avith tobacco juice that the boys had proba- 

 bly exhausted themselves in expectorating 

 at the obnoxious card. 



Was I angry? not in the least; could I 

 have seen the same boys, I should have en- 

 joyed having a talk with them, and I have 

 no fear but that they would have agreed 

 with me, in the end, in principle, if not in 

 practice. True religion and a true love for 

 humanity will make us joyous, even amid 

 persecutions like these. It was but a small 

 job to ]);iint tlie door over again, and proba- 

 bly I did wrong to pnt up the card. These 

 same boys have pulled the locks off our 

 buildings, have broken the boat in the pond, 

 have broken the lock repeatedly to the lum- 

 ber car that they might ride down hill on it 

 Sundays (our side track is on an incline), and 

 when we got a lock so stout they could not 

 break it, they wedged it full of wood, so we 

 could not unlock it ourselves. After the 

 foreman ordered them away, they swore 

 about our Bible class, and got some rotten 

 eggs and threw against my door; I am joy- 

 ous still, at least the most of the time, and I 

 love humanity, yes, even these boys. With 

 my Savior's hel]), I am going to come out 

 ahead too, unless I forget myself and get 

 mad. Satan is trying to get me mad, and he 

 has used these boys to do it, but I iun deter- 

 mined he shall slip up in the little "specula- 

 tion," and that I will get the boys away from 

 him, and into the Bible class. 



I used to be angered beyond measure, wlien 

 I heard that Christian people were praying 

 for me. I^et us put it in this way ; you know 

 me pretty well, and all my circumstances. 

 Are you not anxious I shall go ahead in 

 the way I am now going ? Would any one 

 of you like to see me back again, the "slave 

 of tliat awful temper, and those still worse 

 passions? Would any one like me to get 

 "above" my mission Sunday schools, and 

 be glad to hear that the Bible class had 

 got to be ail old story, and that I had tor- 

 gotten all about my work with the boys? 

 Well, praying for each other, is simply ex- 

 pressing the above in words. You know 

 my faults, my friends, and I hope you will 



