Norwich bulletin., 1912-07-27
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
GETTING HONEY OR GETTING
 STUNG.


 It all depends on the spirit in which one gets about the job. Travellers in the East have often remarked the ease and safety with which natives remove honey from the hive. The se- cret is to be found in the calm, de- liberate movements of these swarthy farmers as they move without haste and without fear among the bees. An impulsive Westerner, rushing and skipping, Is pretty sure to get well stung when he attempts the same op- eration.
 Most experiences in life yield sweet or bitter fruit according to the mood in which we interpret them. It would be difficult to name any event or cir cumstance that is not the bearer, po- tentially, both of bane and of blessing. Which it shall prove, in any partieu- lar case, is determined by the 4ndi- viduals mental and moral behavior.
 When some years ago an employe of a Cincinnati soap firm beat a batch of soap too long it appeared to his mates that he had spoiled the whole boiling. The stuff turned white and
 1t foated. It suddenly occurred to the workman that this would
 prove after all, no insuperable
 objection to people who did much of
 their washing with the muddy waters
 of the Mississippi He accordingly
 rechristened the soap Ivory" and got the firm to advertise the fact that fit floats" They Oyerbeat every batch
 of soap in that factory now. A less agile brain would not have gotten the
 honey of wide popularity and enor-
 nous sales from a mistake. He would simply have gotten discharged
 FrF. al lautst 70
 may be made to yield their tribute to
 culture and to character, Utmost
 beauty and benefit not infrequently spring out of what seems most un- l promising source, Here was the point | of the r1ddis that Samson, that fa-
 nous old jester, put te his friends on l his wedding day, Having eorns upon 1 the carcass Of lien in which A swarm ! of bees had begun storing their honey, l he described the ineideHt iR this enig ma: Out of the eater came forth
 meat and out of the strong came forth l sweetness
 Although his 30 groornsnen belabor- 1 ed their dull wits for three days, they i could not solve the riddle. We are not quite so dull as they. At least we know that very often sweetness | issues from what at first glance is II forbidding and terrible. It is all 8 matter of our faith and skill and 1 courage in grasping given situation That this truth is more than a fine theory l am daily being persuaded
 Everywhere you may behold the same
 circumstances bringing blessings tf
 one and curses to another. Here, fol
 instance are two men who work equal
 ly hard and in the same line. For on,
 the factory walls represent a prisor for tha other OalapQ One is driver to his task each day unwillingly find ing in it no interest nor zest. Tn } other idealizes his job, injects poetr1 } into it and by means of it adds t } both his physical and his moral mus } cle.
 It is possible to extract sweetnes l from even so bitter a thing as failure I Men may accept failure in either on : of two ways-as a. tinality or as
 challenge and stimulus. When tn
 boil Weevill began to chew up the cot , ton crop of the South, some pessimist { predicted that the miserable little bu l spelled ruin for Dixie. But the farm 1 CTS began to blow deeper, to bFin T their crops to an earlier maturity, f y cultivate yariety of other crops be }. sides cotton, until 1t began to appea e that the boil weeyil had been the ad 8 vance agent Of a prosperity greate [ than my the South had yet knowi = They have thought of putting up = monument to him in some states. n "All things work together for goo y to them that love God" sings tn s great apostle. Under this high phiios It ophy not only do favored hours min IT ister to growth but a whole uncann IT brood of troubles-toil, failure, pail F temptation-and the rest become cs