Ate locusts and wild honey in the arid wastes of Palestine

Ate locusts and wild honey in the arid wastes of Palestine

Ate locusts and wild honey in the arid wastes of Palestine

We call them domestic. In one sense they are so; in another, they are as wild and untamed as when buzzing and collecting their sweets in the vineyard of Timnath, where the mighty Sampson took their honey from the carcass of the dead lion; or, as when John the Baptist, clothed with camel's hair, ate "locusts and wild honey" in the arid wastes of Palestine. Although kept in partial bondage for six thousand years, the ruling propensity of the bee is to seek a home and shelter in the forest, when it emerges in a swarm from the parent hive; and no amount of domestic accommodation, or kindness of treatment, will induce it willingly to migrate from its nursery habitation to another by its side, although provided with the choicest comforts to invite its entrance. It will soon fly to the woods, enter a hollow and dilapidated tree, and carve out for itself its future fortunes, amid a world of labor and apparent discomfort. The bee, too, barring its industry, patience, and sweetened labors, is an arrant thief - robbing its nearest neighbors, with impunity, when the strongest, and mercilessly slaughtering its weaker brethren, when standing in the way of its rapacity. It has been extolled for its ingenuity, its patience, its industry, its perseverance, and its virtue. Patience, industry, and perseverance it has, beyond a doubt, and in a wonderful degree; but ingenuity, and virtue, it has none, more than the spider, who spins his worthless web, or the wasp, who stings you when disturbing his labors. Instinct, the bee has, like all animals; but of kind feeling, and gratitude, it has nothing; and with all our vivid nursery remembrance of good Doctor Watts' charming little hymn -