1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



f31 



Our Homes. 



But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 

 rig-hteousness, and all these things shall be added 

 unto you.— Matt. 6:33. 



SOME QUESTIONS FOK A. I. ROOT. 



Friend Roof .-—While I work for the support of 

 myself and family in the .'-ix days that God has 

 given for work, is it right for the preacher to work 

 (prearh) on Sunday for the same object ? 



While I live in a very plain and common way, 

 and am unable to send my children to school, is it 

 right for me to help the preacher to live in high 

 st\ le and educate his children ? 



These questions are asked in this and perhaps 

 many other communities but I am unable to an- 

 swer, so I refer them to you, feeling that, if it is 

 your good pleasure to give us your views in the 

 matter, they will be helpful to many. I try to do 

 the riijlit thing under all circumstances. 



Roxobel, N. C. G. H. Barnes. 



My good friend, I am very glad indeed to help 

 you in any such moral question as the one you 

 propound— that is, so far as I am able to help 

 you. In the first place, it seems to me you 

 start out on a wrong basis. To be sure, it is 

 most commendable for a man to support himself 

 and family— to be self-supporting — to pay his 

 way as he goes; and there are thousands 

 among our neighbors whom we should be very 

 glad indeed to see do that very thing. Yes, it 

 is a sad reflection that, even in this our broad 

 land, with its privileges and opportunities, 

 there are so many who do not take care of 

 themselves and their families — so many who 

 are more or less a burden on the community. 

 Now, while I say this I at the same tiiue main- 

 tain that the man who has no higher motive 

 than to support his wife and family stands on 

 a very low plane. Let me see if I can not make 

 it clear to you. 



A good deal of the time the most of us talk 

 and act as if all the duty we owed to God or to 

 the world were to take care of ourselves and 

 families— to be self-supporting; and when we 

 speak of the different occupations that men 

 enter into, we often consider which occupation 

 will give us the most money. For instance, our 

 agricultural papers at times advise our farmers 

 to raise more corn or oats or potatoes, so they 

 can make the more money; and is it perfectly 

 right and proper to be striving for that line of 

 work which will give us most pay? In one 

 sense it is; but there should be before all of us 

 a higher and nobler incentive. While we work 

 for our own personal good, we should also be 

 laboring for the public good, no matter what 

 our occupation may be. Some men build 

 houses, and it is a very commendable thing to 

 do. The carpenter is considered a very re- 

 spectable man. Well, now, suppose the carpen- 

 ter should say, " I believe that, on the whole, I 

 can make more money farming than I can in 

 building houses, therefore I am going to sell 

 my tools and buy a farm."' This is all right 

 and proper. Suppo.se, however, the carpenter 

 had heard some friend or relative say, "Now, 

 if I were you, instead of going on to a farm I 

 would teach school — why, T get more money 

 teaching school than any farmer or carpenter 

 around here;" what would you think, my 

 friend, of a schoolteacher who. simply because 

 he can make more money at it than he could 

 farming or in building houses, would talk like 

 that? Or, if you choose, suppose you should 

 hear some young doctor say that he had made 

 ever so much more money doctoring than he 

 had in teaching school or in farming, or any 

 thing else he had tried: and suppose he should 

 urge his friends to all go into the business of 

 doctoring because there is lots of money to be 

 made at it. What would you think of such a 



doctor? Wouldn't you begin to feel uneasy at 

 the prospect of having to call a doctor who had 

 bragsed about the large amount of money he 

 could make in a short time by doctoring folks 

 when they were sick? Why, I need not tell 

 you that it would be damaging to the school- 

 teacher or to the doctor either, if it should get 

 out that his sole or principal motiv in teaching 

 the children, or in doctoring sick folks, was to 

 make as much money as he could in the short- 

 est possible time. The teacher who has charge 

 of your children, I am sure, is not that sort of 

 woman or man; and if your family physician 

 has no other motive than to make all the mon- 

 ey he can— yes, and he may do a reasonably 

 good job too, when he is called uf)on— why, I 

 should say, God help you. 



Why is it that we demand that the school- 

 teacher should have some other incentive, as 

 well as the doctor, than that he may make 

 money or support his family? A neighbor 

 right across the railroad track once told me the 

 reason he kept a bar in his house, and sold 

 liquors, was that he might support his family 

 and educate his children. He was a poor igno- 

 rant German, and 1 fear he was a bad man at 

 heart or he would not have urged any such 

 reason why he should go on keeping a saloon. 

 Poor fellow! he did educate his children, but 

 at the same time he educated Mmse// to such 

 an extent that he now fills a drunkard's grave. 

 When we are looking up a teacher we want one 

 who has love for his country and love for his 

 fellow-man, and a high sense of the high honor 

 and responsibility that rests upon him. We 

 want him to realize the sacredness of his task. 

 The schoolteacher who drinks or swears — no 

 matter what his qualifications may be in the 

 way of education — would never get a position 

 if his bad habits were known; and I believe 

 that few teachers, in town, city, or country 

 would care to take the risk of being seen smok- 

 ing a cigar or playing a game of cards. The 

 whole world demands something better of 

 them. The man who builds your house may 

 be a rather bad man, providing he keeps his 

 bad habits out of sight while he is on your 

 premises, and at the same time does a good job. 

 You do not care very much whether he makes 

 lots of money at it or not; and even if he should 

 brag of how much money he made in building 

 that house, you would not care particularly 

 about it, providing he did it as cheaply as any 

 other carpenter would. But suppose the school- 

 teacher or doctor were to do the same thing— 

 don't you see it would not do at all? 



Now, these two professions I have been 

 speaking of — teaching and medicine — come on 

 to this ground of responsibility. The teacher 

 who is supposed to exhort your children toward 

 truth, honesty, purity, sobriety, etc., must Wm- 

 se?/ set a good example. His soul must be in 

 the work of making c/(ik?kind, if not mankind, 

 better. It is all right that he should get good 

 pay for good work; btit we do not want him to 

 put the Yxuj first. The schoolteacher who 

 works solely for the money there is in it would 

 not be worth having. We demand, in the lan- 

 guage of our text, that he shall seek fitst the 

 kingdom of God and his righteousness. Perhaps 

 we do not put it in just so many words, but 

 that is the way we feel about it: and he knows, 

 and ice know, that, just as soon as the coiumu- 

 nity discovers that he is a good and efficient 

 man. and is laying the foundation for good and 

 noble characters among his pupils, then he will 

 get good pay, just as the latter part of our text 

 promises. The same with the doctor. If a 

 patient of his is spoiling his body by using to- 

 bacco or whisky, we expect the doctor to be 

 man enough to jcjin hands with the preacher (I 

 believe that is what you call him, friend B.), 



