1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



93 



Our Homes 



By a. I. Root. 



Thou Shalt not covet.— Exodus 20 : 17. 



There are good people in this world — a lot 

 of them — people who, we might almost say, 

 never do any thing that they know to be 

 wrong. I often think myself that I do not 

 feel tnat I want any thing that belongs to 

 somebody else. A stalwart friend of mine, 

 and a hard-working man, once said to me, 

 ' ' Mr. Root, I do not want a copper that I have 

 not honestly earned; "and I trunk he told the 

 truth. I replied, "Neither do / want a cop- 

 per that I have not honestly earned." 



Well, this friend went on to say that this 

 text at the head of my talk was all right; but 

 when it came to keeping that commandment 

 he thought it was a rather tough matter. 

 He was an earnest Christian man too. I 

 quote his language as nearly as I can remem- 

 ber: "Paul tells us about a thorn he had in 

 his flesh. Well, do you know, Mr. Root, I 

 have been having a thorn in my flesh? It 

 follows me like a low-lived dog; and, no mat- 

 ter how much I kick and abuse that dog, and 

 shake him off, he seems soon to catch up, 

 and to be pushing his nose into my affairs, 

 getting his heiad between my feet, and some- 

 times he almost pesters the life out of me. 

 But the Lord said, ' My grace is sufficient 

 for thee,' and I have found it so." 



That stalwart Christian man then related 

 to me an incident of that low-lived dog which 

 is worth repeating here. He said: 



"It occurred right in church on God's holy 

 day, surrounded by good Christian people; 

 and, besides that, I was sitting close up be- 

 side my pastor, whom I loved and admired. 

 Before he commt need his lesson he explain- 

 ed that our Sunday-school was going to make 

 an appeal for money for a special cause, and 

 he very much desired that his Bible class 

 should set a good example. So saying he 

 put his hand into his pocket and took out a 

 quarter. I also took out a quarter. He ask- 

 ed the man who was taking up the collection 

 to hurry up as we were already late in get- 

 ting started. Now, the quarter I had in my 

 hand was bogus, and I knew it. As my fin- 

 gers slipped over the smooth coin it awak- 

 ened old recollections, and I could not think 

 at first what it was that conscience was prod 

 ding me about. As the collector came along 

 he put out his hand for my contribution, and I 

 recollected that the coin was bogus. As quick 

 as lightning, that dog I have been telling you 

 about, that had followed me all my life, sug- 

 gested that the coin was innocently received 

 by me, and it was not my business to lose it. 

 For a moment I meditated putting the coin 

 back into my pocket and getting something 

 else for my contribution; but this dog or 

 devil was suggesting that I was hindering 

 matters — to 'let it slide,' and I did." 



I started this Home paper with the expec- 

 tation of saying something about making and 

 passing counterfeit money. Somehow or 

 other the above incident makes me feel as if 

 there were a good many of us who have 



dogs following us; but "my grace is suf- 

 ficient for thee." 



Why should anybody be willing to have 

 any thing to do with counterfeit money? 

 Where a man deliberately sends, say, $2.50 

 of good money for $25.00 that is counterfeit, 

 and in return gets a box of sawdust, we say 

 it is good enough for him. Every little while 

 our United States detectives are getting hold 

 of counterfeiters; and a good deal of the time 

 they find women assisting in the work. We 

 can imagine a man who wants money he has 

 not earned; but the whole wide world natu- 

 rally expects something better of women. I 

 believe that counterfeiters excuse themselves 

 by saying that Uncle Sam is so rich he will 

 not mind it and never know it. What kind 

 of philosophy is that? If the world could be 

 cured of tne sin of covetousness there would 

 be no stealing — certainly no highway rob- 

 bery. What an awful picture of total de- 

 pravity comes up before us when we read of 

 a highwayman knocking a man down and 

 pounding him into unconsciousness in order 

 to get his watch and money! This wretch in 

 human form pounds and mutilates a poor 

 hard-working man just as he would pound or 

 mutilate somebody who had wronged him or 

 injured him in some way. When a murder 

 is committed, a great many times the crimi- 

 nal tries to maintain that he did it in self-de- 

 fense—he had no choice but to kill or be 

 killed. But this hold-up fellow or fellows 

 have no such claim at all. They waylay an 

 innocent honest person who is guilty of no 

 offense unless it is that of being in a lonely 

 place at a late hour of the night. Oftentimes 

 a day laborer is waylaid, and may be crippled 

 for life, if not killed outright, just to get hold 

 of his meager earnings; and of late, women 

 have been knocked down and choked in or- 

 der to stop their screams, that these wretches 

 might get hold of their pitiful earnings. Of 

 course the saloon and the drink habit are at 

 the bottom of most of this business. Every 

 little while forgeries are unearthed, and cases 

 of systematic stealing that had been going on 

 sometimes for years. All of these terrible 

 crimes are the outcropping and culmination 

 of breaking that one commandment, "Thou 

 shalt not covet." 



We are often told that prevention is bet- 

 ter than cure, and that the remedy for these 

 crimes — at least the most sensible remedy — 

 would be to commence away back. Teach 

 the little children to have a sacred regard for 

 what belongs to somebody else. Explain to 

 them how wicked it is in God's sight even to 

 desire what belongs to another. Teach them 

 that a coin found on the sidewalk is not their 

 own — at least until they have made every 

 possible effort to find out who dropped it and 

 to whom it justly belongs; and teach them, 

 above all things, to respect the money and 

 property that belong to the great public. 

 Why is it that we constantly hear of so many 

 people who, without conscience or scruple, 

 appropriate public money? Our hard-work- 

 ing people are taxed; and, thank God, they 

 are beginning to wake up and inquire why 

 and for what purpose they are being taxed. 



