LANGSTROTH 
555 
Mr. Langstroth could sit while speaking, 
for his enfeebled condition would not per¬ 
mit him to stand. After a few preliminary 
sentences, and requests for prayer on the 
part of the congregation, he said: “I am 
a firm believer in prayer. It is of the love 
of God that I wish to speak to you this 
morning — what it has been, what it is, what 
it means to us, and what we ought — ” 
His daughter, Anna L. Cowan, who was 
present, thus describes the last scene: 
“As he finished the last word he hesi¬ 
tated; his form straightened out convuls¬ 
ively ; his head fell backward, and in about 
three minutes he was absent from the body, 
at home with the Lord. 
“There was no scene of confusion in the 
church. Tears were running down every 
cheek, but there were no screams, no loud 
sobbing. As one person remarked, ‘Heaven 
never seemed so near before. It seemed 
but a step.’ ” 
Then, with no fiery throbbing pain, 
No slow gradations of decay, 
Death broke at once the vital chain 
And freed his soul the nearest way. 
Thus was finished the remarkable career 
of one of the great men of the country. 
He would have been great had he never 
known anything about bees; but his con¬ 
tributions to bee literature, and his basic 
invention that revolutionized beekeeping 
thruout the world, place him in the very 
front if not the greatest beekeeper who 
ever lived—not in the money he made, but 
what he did in making money for others 
who followed the directions given in his 
delightful book, “The Hive and the Honey¬ 
bee.’’ (The publishers of this work have 
published a reprint just as he wrote it — 
price $1.50.) 
For further particulars regarding his in¬ 
vention, see Frames, also Hives. 
The statement was made that Mr. Lang¬ 
stroth was a great man. Some interesting 
sidelights showing the greatness of his 
character are set forth in an article by his 
old friend A. I. Root in Gleanings in Bee 
Culture for Oct. 15, 1895, just after Mr. 
Langstroth’s death. 
a. i. root’s personal recollections op 
THE REV. L. L. LANGSTROTH. 
Tn the introduction to our ABC book you 
will find some mention of the incidents of 
my first acquaintance with the honeybee, 
and how I came into possession of Lang¬ 
stroth’s book. 
I made the acquaintance, by letter, of 
Samuel Wagner; got hold of Vol. I. of the 
American Bee Journal. I wonder whether 
there is anybody living now who will enjoy 
reading the first edition of Langstroth and 
the first volume of the American Bee Jour¬ 
nal as I enjoyed it then. Why, the very 
thought of those old days of enthusiasm 
makes the blood even now tingle to my fin¬ 
gers ’ ends. 
As soon as I found that Mr. Langstroth 
was living at Oxford, Butler Co., O., I com¬ 
menced correspondence. Then I wanted the 
best queen bee to start with that the world 
afforded. It was pretty well along in the 
fall, but I could not wait till spring, as some 
of my friends advised me to do. I soon 
learned to look up to friend Langstroth with 
such confidence and respect that I greedily 
read again and again every word I could find 
from his pen—even his advertisements and 
circular in regard to Italian bees. When the 
book was read thru once I read it again. 
Then I read certain chapters over and over; 
and when summer time came again, and I 
had little miniature hives or nuclei under al¬ 
most every fruit tree in our spacious door- 
yard, each little hive containing a daughter 
of that $20 queen, then I read Langstroth’s 
book with still more avidity and eagerness, 
finding new truths and suggestions in it 
each time. 
I think I met him first and heard him talk 
at a convention in Cincinnati. He .was a 
wonderful talker as well as writer—one of 
the most genial, good-natured, benevolent 
men the world has ever produced. He was a 
poet, a sage, a philosopher, and a humani¬ 
tarian, all in one, and, best of all, a most 
devoted and humble follower of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. His ' fund of anecdotes and 
pleasant memories and incidents was beyond 
that of any other man I ever met; and his 
rare education and scholarly accomplish¬ 
ments but added to it all. No one I ever 
saw could tell a story as he would tell it. A 
vein of humor and good-natured pleasantry 
seemed to run thru it all. I think he en¬ 
joyed telling stories—especially stories with 
good morals; and they all had to have a 
good moral or they could not come from L. L. 
Langstroth. Not only the play of his benev¬ 
olent face and the twinkle of his eye, but 
the motion of his hands as he gave empha¬ 
sis to the different points in his narration, 
showed how t.horoly he entered into his 
topic. 
It was my good fortune to listen to him 
one or more times from the pulpit. He 
preached to us once here in Medina. The 
church was full, but I hardly believe any 
one else in that large audience enjoyed his 
talk as I did. They did not know him as I 
did. 
You must not think from what I have said 
