1901 



GLKAN'LNGS IN BEE CUl^TURE 



209 



OUR ; 



hoMes,1 



BY A.I. ROOT. ' 



Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them for they 

 know not what they do. — Luke ^3:34. 



The last state of that man is worse than the first. — 

 Matt. 12: J5. 



I saw a statement recently in the papers, to 

 the effect that three-fourths of the men in the 

 United States use tobacco more or less. In 

 my recent trip through the South I was im- 

 pressed that something of the kind is true, es- 

 pecially if we include the colored people. 

 Since my trip through the Southern States 

 six years ago, there has been a very great in- 

 crease in the use of tobacco among the blacks, 

 and, 1 fear, among the whites, especially the 

 poor classes that are least able to afford it. 

 When so many are against me, Satan some- 

 times suggests I had better give it up and 

 "let the world wag." But the voice of Christ 

 Jesus says, "Not so." He was content, when 

 here on earth, to work day and night, almost, 

 without being weary, even though the multi- 

 tudes were almost all against him. Some 

 skeptical writer has said that Jesus never had 

 more than a mere handful of followers, com- 

 paratively, at any time ; that he was disap- 

 pointed at every turn, and that his whole plan 

 and his Hfework were a failure. Dear me ! 

 Did it never occur to this poor foolish writer 

 that he was only stating what the prophet 

 Isaiah said, only in a different way? "He 

 was despised and rejected of men ; a man of 

 sorrows, and acquainted with grief." 



I might be disheartened and discouraged 

 were it not for the constant stream of kind 

 and encouraging letters that come in the mails 

 every day — not only from men and women, 

 but even children have told me how much 

 good these Home Papers have done them. It 

 seems as if human language could not be 

 framed into sentences more touching and pa- 

 thetic ; and I would answer these kind letters 

 as fast as they come, thanking the writers for 

 their (as it sometimes seems to me) extrava- 

 gant praise of my poor efforts, did time per- 

 mit. But if I did this, as I feel prompted to 

 do, I should not have time to write the Home 

 Papers nor to advise and suggest to the hun- 

 dreds who are in trouble. Therefore I have 

 faith, even though compared with the great 

 outside world I seem to be but a little speck 

 or a mere bubble in a great wide sea. My 

 Home Paper in the last issue was cut short for 

 want of space ; but I have something more to 

 say right along in that same line. A few 

 hours after having that talk with Mr. Buder I 

 was thrown in company with the postmaster 

 of Wewahitchka ; in fact, we rode together 

 one whole day on the steamer. Alluding to 

 my talk on Sunday evening, he said some- 

 thing like this : 



" Mr. Root, you struck a point that is need- 

 ed right here in the South more than any 

 other one thing I know of. In fact, you little 

 dream of the harm tobacco is doing among 

 the old and the young, male and female. I 



keep a store, as you know, as well as the post- 

 office. There is quite a class all around us 

 who work from hand to mouth. Yes, it is 

 worse than that. When a man gets a job, be- 

 fore he can go to work he tells his employer 

 he has got to have something to buy victuals 

 with. He can not work until he has had a 

 good square meal. This is more or less true 

 of the whites as well as of the blacks, but 

 more often, of course, of the blacks ; and an 

 employer has very often to give a man an or- 

 der on the store before he can get him to go 

 to work. The orders come to me every day, 



reading, for instance, like this : ' Let Mr. 



have $1.50 worth of groceries, and charge it 

 to my account.' Then I say, 'All right, Mr. 



, what do you want for the $1.50? ' The 



reply is almost invariably something like this: 

 ' Well, let me see. You may give me 50 cents' 

 worth of tobacco.' 'Here is your tobacco — 

 what next ? ' ' Well, I guess I will have to 

 have 25 cents' worth of snuff.' There, you 

 see, Mr. Root, half of the $1.50 that he was 

 to have for absolute necessities for his family 

 goes for tobacco and snuff, and the rest for 

 food. You may think this is an exaggeration; 

 but I tell you it is a fair statement of affairs, 

 not only in our locality, but almost all through 

 the South. Half if not more of all these poor 

 people earn goes for the very thing that keeps 

 them down, behindhand, and crippled physi- 

 cally and intellectually." 



I did not have the courage to tell the post- 

 master while he was talking that, if I were in 

 his place, I would refuse to touch, taste, or 

 handle, or have any thing to do with the ac- 

 cursed traffic. His answer, very likely, would 

 have been that it would simply turn the trade 

 to the other store across the way, without di- 

 minishing the amount of tobacco in any re- 

 .spect whatever. Well, even if this were true 

 it would be starting to break the ground, even 

 if it did nothing more. And, may the Lord 

 be praised, we have an object-lesson right here 

 in c«;' town, that has been standing before 

 the faces and eyes of all the people for fifteen 

 or twenty years. A young man united with 

 the Congregational Church. He was soundly 

 and thoroughly converted. At the time, he 

 owned a grocery store. He went to his pastor 

 and to myself, in great trouble. With tears 

 in his eyes he told us that he would lose mon- 

 ey if he stopped the sale of tobacco. But his 

 pastor and I both assured him that the Lord 

 would take cnre of him. From that time to 

 this he has positively refused to have any 

 thing to do with tobacco in any shape or man- 

 ner. His store is to-day the largest and finest 

 in our town, and has been taking the lead dur- 

 ing all the years that are past. His strict in- 

 tegrity is so well known that people telephone 

 him from the right and the left to bring this, 

 that, and the other, without even asking the 

 price. His establishment almost makes no 

 mistakes. People are not annoyed by being 

 dunned months afterward for things they 

 bought and paid cash for. His store is a clean 

 and pleasant place for ladies to enter ; and I 

 think that even his rivals in business must ac- 

 knowledge the statement I make is true. 



Six years ago I told you about a boy I met 



