1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1269 



Our Homes 



By a. I. Root 



Thou Shalt not commit adultery. — Ex. 20:14. 

 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of 

 death.— Pkov. 7:27. 



Some time ago, while in the city of New York, 

 I had a chat with Mr. Collingwood, the editor of 

 the Rural Nenju -Yorker. I told him one great 

 reason why I recommended that paper more than 

 any other of our good agricultural papers was 

 because it was taking the lead in fighting hum- 

 bugs and frauds, and iniquity of every sort wher- 

 ever it crops out. I have often thought of the 

 reply Mr. Collingwood made. It was in sub- 

 stance something like this : 



" Mr. Root, I do not enjoy that kind of work. 

 I dread it, and oftentimes go into it very reluc- 

 tantly; but when I feel that the Lord calls on me 

 to go down into Egypt, I am going to go don n — 

 that is, when I am sure it is my duty for the good 

 of the people, even though I sometimes go very 

 unwillingly. " 



Now, dear friends, I too dislike "going down 

 into Egypt;" and some of you may think that 

 the matter I am going to discuss to-day might 

 be, a part of it, left out; but after thinking it 

 over, and praying over it, 1 have decided that 

 God wants me to hold up a warning. 



In our issue for Sept. 1, page 1081, I said the 

 marriage relation should be regarded as the most 

 sacred and solemn thing between birth and death; 

 and I wish to emphasize that fact by two sketches 

 from real life. 



Years ago, when I was exhorting all my friends 

 and acquaintances to choose the Lord Jesus Christ 

 for counselor and friend, I became acquainted 

 with a young man who worked for me, and I 

 had several talks with him. A little later his 

 father also came into my employ. They came 

 from a neighborhood where Christianity was at 

 a rather low ebb. I think spiritualism had been 

 prevalent in that region for a number of years, 

 and religious matters had been put in the back- 

 ground. After several talks with these two peo- 

 ple, I had the satisfaction of getting a promise 

 from both of them to make at least a start in 

 following the Savior. If I am correct, both of 

 them gave me their hand as they gave me the 

 promise. I can not remember now whether 

 that promise included coming to our meetings 

 and standing up before the world, as an indica- 

 tion that they were going to give the matter at 

 least a trial; but I fully expected to see them both 

 take such a public stand. I can not tell whether 

 the father came to the meetings or not. The son 

 did, but, if I am correct, he did not get quite to 

 the point where he stood up or took part in any 

 meeting. 



Not long after this talk, while the father was 

 busy at his work, a young woman who worked 

 for a family near by came out and spoke to him. 

 They were not acquainted at that time. He may 

 have noticed her in passing by where she was em- 

 ployed, and I am afraid that, even though he -i-vas 

 the father of grown-up children, he had been so 

 careless as to cast perhaps admiring glances toward 

 her. Oh dear me ! As my mind goes back, and 

 I think it over, I am afraid there are other fathers 



of families — yes, and perhaps professing Chris- 

 tians — who are so careless or thoughtless as to 

 cast admiring glances toward women other than 

 their own wives, especially if such women take 

 pains to invite such glances of admiration. Well, 

 this young woman left her work that morning 

 and stopped this father as he was going by and 

 said something like this: 



" Mr. Brown, perhaps you know there is going 



to be a circus over at next week. Now, I 



should an.vfully like tg go, but I can not very 

 well go alone. Would you not like to get oiT a 

 day and go to the circus" with me.?" 



Surely this was a bold proposal, or at least some 

 people would consider it so. Otiiers might think 

 there was no particular harm in it. These two 

 persons might get on the car at the same time, 

 and if they did not sit in the same seat nobody 

 would think any thing about it. When they got 

 to the circus in a strange city, where nobody 

 knew either of them, their presence together 

 would be unnoticed, and they might get back 

 home and nobody know any thing about their 

 being together. When I afterward remonstrated 

 with the father about what he had done, especial- 

 ly after the promise he had given me, he main- 

 tained that there was nothing particularly wrong 

 about their going to the circus together in the 

 way I have described. He said in substance: 



"Why, Mr. Root, there is hardly a man going 

 along the streets who would refuse to go to a 

 circus with a nice-looking girl when she went out 

 of her way to ask him to go with her as a favor." 



But in closing I said: 



"But, Mr. Brown, do you think that a mar- 

 ried man, the father of grown-up children, ought 

 to go off in that way with a woman who is al- 

 most a total stranger to him } " 



He replied that, putting it that way, perhaps it 

 was not just the tiling to do; but he didnotthink 

 very much about it at the time, and had no idea 

 any harm would come from it. 



Now, I hope you will excuse me if I talk plain- 

 ly, and tell you right out in print what harm did 

 come. They did not get away from the circus 

 as they expected to; and when they did leave they 

 were obliged to take a train that would not get 

 them home that night. They had to stop over 

 at a station part way. Now, I do not know who 

 made the first suggestion, but I do know that 

 the elderly man and young woman stopped at a 

 hotel at that place as ;;/«// a/id ^ivife, thinking 

 that nobody would ever make inquiry, and that 

 it would never be found out; and it was not found 

 out for several months afterward. What abject 

 folly! what <ro///rt'those two people have been think- 



*Some of my friends — yes, even good Christian people— think 

 me a little singular because 1 shudder at the very mention of a 

 circus Please notice, this woman did not invite the man to go 

 with her to a Sunday-school convention nor even to a county fair. 

 The circus was just the place for her undertaking. This man was 

 a great lover of horses, and she knew it. He was an expert in 

 handling a fine team; and, by the way, the horses in the circus 

 are an excuse lor many good people to attend. I suppose the 

 world has mostly forgotten the book called David Harum, and I 

 am glad that it went so quickly out of sight. Now, David Harum 

 not only made light of religion, and held up church deacons to 

 ridicule in his opening chapter, but later on he put in a most elo- 

 quent plea, not only for letting boys go to the circus, but encour- 

 aging them to go. Now mark my word: When the saloons are 

 banished from this State, Ohio is not going to be the popular 

 "hunting ground" for circuses that it has been in times past; 

 for gamb/ers and had women are going to decamp also when the 

 saloons disappear. 



