1910 



OLEAXIXGS IN BEE CULTURE 



499 



Our Homes 



By A. I. Root 



God hath chosen the foolish things of the world 

 to confound the wise: and God hath chosen the 

 weak things of the world to confound the things 

 which are mighty.— I. Cor. 1 :27. 



I have several times alluded to a period in 

 my life when I thought it a fine thing to 

 point oi;t the faults in professing Christians, 

 and even to ridicule the precepts of the good 

 old Bible. I think I had been keeping rath- 

 er bad company at that time of my life. I 

 was also very busy in accumulating what I 

 could of the things of this world. Somehow 

 I had forgotten, or, rather, set aside my 

 good old mother's teachings, or at least I 

 had lost sight of them, apparently, for the 

 time being; for God knows I never strayed 

 very far away from that good and sainted 

 mother. At the time I mention, I was not 

 attending church nor Sunday-school. I do 

 not know but there were several years of my 

 life, when I was between 20 and 25, when I 

 rarely attended religious services of any 

 kind. When I look back now and think of 

 it I am led to exclaim in wonder, "Was that 

 really A. I. Root?" The ministers of the 

 different churches of Medina called on me, 

 it is true; and 1 think I sometimes gave a 

 little contribution for keeping up the church 

 and Sunday-school; but whenever I talked 

 with those good pastors I generally persuad- 

 ed them, or at least tried to persuade them, 

 that I was a "pretty good sort of man," aft- 

 er all. I "i^aid my debts." "did not get 

 drunk," etc. One day while I sat working 

 at the bench (for I was a watchmaker and 

 jeweler) I said to the young man who was 

 my assistant and clerk, "Who is that red- 

 haired young man whom I have seen on the 

 streets several times lately?" 



"Why, Mr. Root, that is a young theolog 

 from Oberlin. If I am correct, he is to be 

 pastor of the Congregational Church. Your 

 people attend that church, do they not?" 



I assented; but I felt ashamed to o^\^l up 

 that, although Mrs. Root attended regular- 

 ly, and* two of our children who were old 

 enough, were always on hand for Sunday- 

 school, I had not been often enough to know 

 who the minister was nor any thing about 

 it. In re])ly to what the cleVk had said I 

 added, "Why, do you mean that that fel- 

 low is a preacher? " 



" That is what he is unless I am greatly 

 mistaken." 



"Why, I do not believe that that boy can 

 preach a sermon. If he does, I believe I 

 would like to go and hear him, just for the 

 fun of it." 



I thought then that it would be a fine 

 thing to listen to his boyish attempt to 

 preach a sermon. And another thing, it 

 would give me an opportunity to criticise, 

 with my very superior knowledge (?) and 

 attainments. 



I suppose some of my good friends will 



scold because I have given place to the 

 above; but as nearly as I can recollect it 

 gives pretty correctly the true dimensions 

 of your old friend A. I. Root when he was 

 the father of a family of only two children 

 old enough to go to Sunday-school. After 

 that I forgot all about the young minister; 

 and perhaps I would not have gone to hear 

 him preach after all had not something oc- 

 curred to call the boy preacher to mind 

 again. Mrs. Root, although then not a 

 niember of any church, has been, every mo- 

 ment of her life, a firm believer in the Bible 

 and Christianity. When I declined to go to 

 church, shortly after our marriage, she al- 

 ways went whether I did or not; and as soon 

 as our children were old enough to go to 

 Sunday-school they were always on hand. 



You may have gathered from these Home 

 talks that Mrs. Root is a very neat and tidy 

 housekeeper. Not only that, she has a won- 

 derful faculty for keeping the children neat 

 and tidy. I never came home from my 

 work without finding the boy and the little 

 girl, at the period of which I am speaking, 

 looking neat and sweet, and ready to be kiss- 

 ed; and Sunday mornings especially they 

 were fixed up just as neat and trim as it was 

 possible to fix them wiih our humble means 

 at that time, for it is true, dear friends, that 

 Mrs. Root and I commenced housekeeping 

 with almost no capital; and for many years 

 after, we saved the pennies and cut down 

 expenses in every way; and may the Lord 

 be praised that we did have to make our 

 own way in the world. 



Well, I was always "tired " on Sunday — 

 at least I said I was. I had been confined 

 in the shop and behind the counter a dozen 

 hours or more every day, and Sunday I 

 wanted a rest day. I did not exactly rest 

 all day Sunday, either, although I often 

 talked about it. Well, one Sunday morn- 

 ing Mrs. Root proceeded as usual to fix up 

 the children for Sunday-school. She got 

 the boy ready first; and while she was shin- 

 ing up the shoes for the little girl and put- 

 ting on the finishing touches in other ways, 

 this boy came into the front room where I 

 was sitting in the middle of the room in a 

 rocking-chair, perhaps reading the Scientific 

 American. I looked up and admired him. 

 He certainly was a bright handsome boy, 

 and he and I were the greatest friends in 

 the world. He asked questions, and I an- 

 swered them to the best of my ability; and 

 we were both greatly interested in all that 

 was going on in the beautiful world that 

 God has given us; yes, I felt it even then, 

 but I did not state it then in exactly that^ 

 way. While I was reading something that 

 greatly interested me, Ernest (for he was 

 the chap) commenced walking around my 

 chair. When he was in a brown study about 

 any thing, or when something was on his 

 mind, he had a habit of walking around in 

 that way. I soon recognized that something 

 was troubling him; so I laid aside my paper 

 and said, "Well, Ernest, what is it?" 



Without replying at once he looked up to 

 me in a wishful sort of way and hesitated. 



