740 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1919 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walk- 

 eth about, seeking whom he may devour. — I Petek 

 5:8. 



Whosoever looketh on a woman to lu.st after her 

 hath committed adultery with her already in his 

 heart. — Matt. 5:28. 



And they come to Jesus, and see him that was 

 possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, 

 and clothed, and in his right mind. — M.\rk 5:15. 



SOME years 

 ago there 

 was consid- 

 erable cinticism 

 and perhaps a 

 good deal of 

 si^ort, or at least 

 attempted sport, 

 in regard to de- 

 moniacal posses- 

 sion. Some 

 learned instruct- 

 or (?), I do not 

 know but he 

 came from Ger- 

 man}' (I think 

 very likely he 

 did), infonned 

 us that humani- 

 ty in olden time 

 were afflicted with epileptic fits, much as 

 they are now — perhaps more so — and the 

 people got an idea that certain persons 

 were " possessed of devils," when in reality 

 they were either the subjects of fits or had 

 gone crazy; and the idea was scouted that 

 Satan ever took possession of the soul and 

 heart of a human being. Of late years I 

 have heard but very little about it. I think 

 that Bible readers and these different or- 

 ganizations that have been disseminating 

 millions of bibles dnd testaments generally 

 accept the Bible as it reads. A perusal of 

 our recent daily papers, it seems to me, 

 ought to convince any one that " devils " 

 (or something else) do get hold of men 

 and women — yes, and even girls 16 years 

 of age, as appears from the following item 

 which is taken from the Cleveland Plain 

 Dealer. 



DROWNS WIFE IN POOL 



JI.\N MARRIES GIRL, 16, WEEK AFTER, SAY.? SHERIFF. 



Pinckneyville, 111., Sept. 8. — William Wrolen, 29, 

 a railroad employe, is said to have confessed today 

 to Sheriff Thimmig that on July 8, while swimming, 

 he knocked hi.s wife unconscious and held her under 

 water until she drowned. 



Two of his three children were playing on the 

 hank of the stream at the time, according to the 

 sheriflf. 



A week later Wrolen was married to Mary Brown, 

 a 16-year-old girl, who also was arrested. 



Of course, I do not know how much that 

 16-year-old girl was at fault in this terrible 

 tragedy. She may have thoughtlessly and 

 possibly innocently invited the attention of 

 that wicked man. On the other hand, he 

 may have started the hellish work by first 

 casting admiring glances at that young- 

 girl, as in our second text. Years ago John 

 B. Gougli said something like this in one 

 of his lectures. It happened somewhere 

 in his travels that he caught sight of a sot 

 who had fallen into a ditch ; and while Mr. 



Gougli stopped 

 and looked o i 

 the poor wretch 

 he voiced his 

 feelings some- 

 thing as fol- 

 lows: "But for 

 the grace of 

 God, there lies 

 John B.Gough." 

 Now, dear 

 friends, what J 

 am going to say 

 seems pretty 

 harsh and se- 

 V e r e , and I 

 suppose that 

 many of m y 

 friends will ut- 

 ter a vehement 

 ])rotest; but when I saw that clipping in 

 the papers I felt like saying much as 

 Gough did in thinking of that awful 

 wicked man. " But for the grace of God, 

 there lies A. I. Root." This man had 

 been married several years, for he had 

 three children. Two of them were at the 

 time playing on the bank of the pool. The 

 above affair was, no doubt, deliberately 

 planned beforehand. He persuaded the 

 good, faithful mother to go in bathing with 

 him. He thought that in this way he could 

 escape punishment by pretending that she 

 was drowned by accident; and he planned 

 in some respects with much ingenuity, for 

 Satan does have a certain kind of wisdom 

 when he gets his victim fully in his clutches. 

 But, oh, dear me! the guilty wretch forgot 

 about the all-seeing eye of the great God 

 above. If Satan showed wisdom in this 

 part of the program, he certainly lacked it 

 in urging that man to rush ahead and 

 mairy that poor child (for so he might call 

 her) within just one iveek. Did he or she 

 think they could ever be hapi^y after such 

 a crime ? Poor deluded mortals ! I do 

 not know anything further about the pai'- 

 ties than what is told in the above brief 

 sketch; but I imagine that in one brief 

 week more, both of them must have bitterly 

 regretted their folly. Without question, 

 in one week or less this poor man found 

 out that this silly girl of 16 years could in 

 no possible way take the place of the poor 

 faithful and loving real mother in the care 

 of those three children. Of course I have 

 never committed any such crime, nor even 

 contemplated such an act in uiy encounters 

 with Satan; but I do know something of 

 the remorse tliis man must have felt. Hun- 

 dreds and perliaps thousands of criminals 

 have committed suicide in order to escape 



