426 



AMERICAN BEE lOUPNAL. 



July 4, 1901. 



^ ^^ The Home Circle. ^ ^ 



Conducted bii Prof. ft. J. Cook, Claremont, Calif. 



THE TRUE HOME THE CORNER=sfoNE. 



I need not say in these " Home Circle " papers — I need 

 not say anywhere, for it surely goes in all our blessed country 

 without saying — that the true home is the very corner-stone 

 in every true society. The best society is builded on its 

 homes. The child that knows no home is bereft indeed. The 

 child that knows not the truest harmonies that alone can 

 make the true home, loses the best that can enter into the 

 life — the soul — of any child. 



I dare say I have said all this in other form before. It 

 will bear repetition. I may wisely say it over and over. I 

 hope my readers may take up the song and give it warm, glad 

 utterance. Let us wake in the hearts and minds of all our 

 dear children, the idea of the blessedness of the best home, 

 that we may beget in them an absorbing ambition each 

 day to be the head or centre of the very best home felicity. 

 To this end let me have all your ears to-day as I press the 

 importance of our 



SPEECH IN THE HOME. 

 I am a believer — a sincere believer — in prayer. The man 

 whose life is not braced and anchored in prayer lacks a best 

 help to make his own life superlatively excellent, and his own 

 home what the '-Loving Father " wishes it to be. I wish we 

 might all daily pray, "Oh, God, may the words of my mouth 

 this day and ever be such as becometh the gospel of peace." 

 Of course, good words mean a good heart. "Out of the abun- 

 dance of the heart the mouth speaketh." So we may build 

 onto that prayer, "Create within us a clean heart, oh, God !" 

 I am led to all this by the statement in Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture that $l,(i59,5ti5,T8T is the annual drink-lDill of our 

 people. I hope Gleanings made a mistake. I fear it is all too 

 true. Oh, friends 1 is there not a terrible pathos in those fig- 

 ures ? 



A woman comes to our house each week to help us. She 

 has great energy, has marked intelligence, and has a family 

 of bright, winsome girls. She has had a hell of a home. An 

 intemperate husband is her ill — her terrible — fortune. When 

 drunk he is a very fiend, and no one's life is safe. She loved 

 the father of her precious children. Over and over she 

 received him back as the prison-doors unlocked and let him 

 forth as sentence for repeated debauches expired. At last, in 

 sheer despair, she ha.~, with broken heart, sent him forth to 

 return no more. Who of us that have been saved from such 

 woes and anguish, can possibly appreciate the misery and 

 despair of those hearts and that home ? Who of us will not 

 say with deeper anguish. We will do even more to drive that 

 anachronism of our day and civilization — the saloon — from 

 our country ? And I wish here to speak of one way. 



Do we Joke at intemperance ? Do we laugh and exclaim 

 In merry mood as the poor, besotted wretch passes us by? Or 

 the rather, does our face sober, and our whole demeanor tell 

 of our sorrow and regret for the fallen soul ? 



Xot long since I was in a Los Angeles street-car. At a 

 stopping, we were brought to face a policeman leading a 

 young soldier in soiled uniform, who was staggering drunk. 

 His maudlin utterance and reeling gait caused almost all in 

 the car to laugh, and even jokes were made at this awful 

 sight. I wondered then — I wonder still — how any one could 

 even think to laugh. A soul on the down grade .' Or how 

 such a scene could suggest the lightsome word. I rode away 

 sorrowing, and have sorrowed ever since when the picture has 

 returned to memory. 



Oh, can we not commence so early to impress our children 

 with the horrors of drunkenness, and the awful evils of the 

 drink habit, that they will not only abhor the saloon and all 

 its vile belongings, but will sadden, and sorrow, and speak 

 grave words, at sights such as I have just depicted ? 



There is another evil greater than intemperance. It is 

 well called "the social evil," as all others sink befoie it. Yet 

 who has not seen the grimace, and heard the joke even from 

 lips that claimed to be those of Christian gentlemen? Oh! 

 fellow parents, let us pray, study, think, plan, that we may 

 so culture and refine our dear boys and girls that they may 

 ever walk in ways of cleanness and purity, and that they 

 may sorrow with unutterable sorrow as they become conscious 

 of the ruined, hopeless lives that cloud even our American 

 society. And may never help, by look, word, or act, to add 



to the grewsome company that form the sorest blot on our 

 body politic. 



CHURCH=Q01NG. 



I hope there may not be too much sermonizing in this 

 manifesto to our homes. Nearly everybody goes to church 

 here in Claremont. The same is true of Pomona. I have 

 heard it stated that over 90 percent of the Pomonaites, 

 including children, are church-goers. Though Pomona has 

 several thousand people, like Claremont she has no saloon. 

 Church-goers and saloons do not flourish on the same soil. 



One of our Claremont citizens is a nice man, and has a 

 nice family. His wife always goes to church. She formerly 

 brought all the children. I often remarked to Mrs. Cook, 

 " Oh '. that that man could see his mistake." Later the oldest 

 boy ceased to come with the mother. This summer that boy 

 with two others ran away from home. No one knew where 

 they were for days. There was solid grief in those homes. 

 Would not that father, had he gone to church, given the dear 

 wife the richest of comfort ? Would he not have been likely 

 to have received inspiration that would have helped him to 

 say better words and do better things before those bright 

 children ? Would he not, more than likely, have prevented 

 that sorrowful episode in the home that all felt to be a dis- 

 grace ? 



Now I notice that the second boy is not coming, and only 

 the little girl keeps the mother company. Here, where nearly 

 every one goes to church, how easy to have kept the boys in 

 church and Sunday-school. We have a model Sunday-school 

 in which splendid men and women in prospective are being 

 beautifully fashioned. I truly believe that if our fathers only 

 knew how much such meetings helped to make grand men 

 and women, as well as beautiful and obedient boys and girls, 

 not to say worthy and excellent citizens, they would soon be 

 found of a Sunday morning leading tlie family to the house 

 of worship. And. oh I how that would rejoice the yearning, 

 longing heart of the mother. 



Two years ago I stepped off the train in the great Grand 

 Trunk depot of Chicago. I had written our friend, Mr. York, 

 that I would come on that train. He had written me that I 

 was to wait till he came. It was in the early evening of Sun- 

 day. I waited long. It was not tedious. I never am lonely 

 in such places or at such times. The people, some good book 

 or magazine, always make the hours, like birds, fly by. 

 Later our good friend came. He was just from church, 

 where he and his delightful wife always aid in the worship. 



God be praised that the old American Bee .Journal has a 

 Christian editor, who fears God and desires above everything 

 else to keep his commandments. This fact makes for the 

 refinement and betterment of every reader of our beloved 

 American Bee Journal. 



-See page -418. 



" The Hum of the Bees in the Apple-Tree Bloom " is 

 the name of the finest bee-keeper's song — words by Hon. 

 Eugene Secor and music by Dr. C. C. Miller. This is 

 thought by some to be the best bee-song yet written by Mr. 

 Secor and Dr. Miller. It is, indeed, a " hummer." We can 

 furnish a single copy of it postpaid, for 10 cents, or 3 copies 

 for 25 cents. Or, we will mail a half-dozen copies of it for 

 sending us one new yearly subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal at fl.OO. 



