OCTOBER 15, 1912 



Our Homes 



A. I. ROOT 



Be not unequally yoked together. — II. Cor. 6:14. 



Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, 

 walketh about, seeking vphom he may devour. — 

 I. Peter 5:8. 



Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 

 laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 

 upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and 

 low^ly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto your 

 souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is 

 light. — Matt. 11:28-30. 



A BEEKEEPER IN TROUBLE, 



The following letter somewhat explains 

 itself: 



Mr. A. I. Root: — I am in great trouble, and 

 in jail on account of not being able to pay alimony 

 to my divorced wife. This is an attempt to take 

 my pension money away from me. I have had 

 12 dollars a month up till a few days ago, when 

 it was increased to 30 dollars a month. They took 

 ten dollars a month out of the twelve dollars for 

 some time, till I had to sell my horse and cow 

 to keep my two little boys and myself, and I am 

 about $500 in debt. I send you book and paper 

 under other two covers, which will give you an 

 outline of the case. 



Sept. 10. J. E. C. 



The book sent me, referred to in the 

 above, is about the size of Gleanings, and 

 contains 59 pages. These 59 pages con- 

 tain full details that need not and should 

 not have been allowed to get into print 

 at all, as they refer only to neighborhood 

 quarrels between relatives and neighbors. 

 Why in the world our good friend should 

 have ever gone to the trouble of putting 

 such matters in print is more than I can 

 explain. Notwithstanding his statement 

 that he is a poor man, and has had to sell 

 his horse and cows, and part with his two 

 little boys, in a letter in a local paper 

 which he sends, he says he is working hard 

 to get money enough to buy a gas-engine 

 to run his extractor. He says his right 

 arm is partly j^aralyzed by turning the 

 extractor to extract so much honey. Now, 

 my opinion is that turning the extractor 

 has had but little to do with it. His nervous 

 condition from dwelling so much on his 

 quarrels with his wife and neighbors has 

 brought on paralysis, and no wonder. Let 

 me quote briefly from the first page of 

 this book: 



AN EXPOSE ; A TRUTHFUL STATEMENT OF MY AC- 

 QUAINTANCE, MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE FROM 

 MAY E. SMITH. 



In the spring and early summer of 1892 Miss 

 May E. Smith came to my place repeatedly after 

 a quart of honey vinegar. She had called herself 

 Miss Chase to me; and, in fact, I did not learn her 

 true name until, speaking to a schoolmate of hers 

 and calling her Miss Chase, he said to me, "Her 

 name is not Chase, her name is Smith." Yet I 

 thought for some time after that she was Mrs. 

 Chase's daughter by a former marriage. Certainly 

 she had lived in Medford over four years when 

 this took place, but my attention had never been 

 called to her. I took her to be about fourteen years 

 of age in the short dresses she wore. 



I can tell you I was considerably surprised when 

 she told me she was twenty years old. 



I was forty-eight years old at that time, and 

 was not interested in any girl so young, only to 



treat them respectfully. But there was a persist- 

 ency in her attentions and treatment of myself 

 that would have taken an indomtiable "I will not" 

 to counteract, and thus I was led , forced, against 

 my own best julgment into a marriage with this 

 too young person, by and with the help of Mrs. 

 W. S. Chase, a lady for whom I had the greatest 

 respect at that time. I want t« sav right here that 

 this marriage was the mistake of my life. I have 

 my faults, as we all do. I am afraid of the per- 

 son that has no faults ; but can we not cut them 

 out, nor make them grow less. I can stand a 

 lot; my shoulders are broad; but surely my pun- 

 ishment for this marriage is too grievous. They 

 have kidnapped my children, my pets, my darlings, 

 my babies, out of the nice little home which I had 

 provided for them, and left me bereft of my jewels 

 in my old age, and this is a crime for filthy lucre, 

 and nothing else, or why did they resort to per- 

 jury and fraud to accomplish this vile scheme? 

 Three sisters perjured themselves — Amanda Smith 

 Cady testifying that I drew a big revolver on her 

 and her father. This is false. 



A man 48 years old was unwise enough 

 to get married to a little girl wearing short 

 dresses. She claimed to be 20, but Mr. 

 C. thinks she was only about 14. Of 

 course it was a big blunder to contract 

 such a marriage in the first jilace. But af- 

 ter it was all "said and done," and es- 

 pecially after there were some children 

 given them, friend C. needed the grace of 

 God in his heart if anybody ever did. A 

 genuine Christian man — one who is full 

 of the jDatience and forbearance of the 

 Lord Jesus Christ, would get along with a 

 wife, even in her teens, and the divorce he 

 speaks of, I feel sure, was entirely wrong 

 and out of place. 



Dropping for the present the case be- 

 fore us, let us consider a little this matter 

 of old men marrying young girls. I need 

 not make particular mention of the mil- 

 lionaires who have quite recently divorced 

 the wives of their early manhood, in order 

 to marry a young girl — generally an act- 

 ress. In fact, I haA'e feared there are 

 giddy and unscrupulous young girls who 

 set about a course of training in order to 

 capture or captivate some old man who 

 hai^jjened to be rich; and I have watched 

 as well as I could the results of such 

 marriages. The young girl not only soon 

 gets sick of her bargain, but the foolish 

 (and, I might almost say, the idiotic) old 

 man in a like manner would be exceeding- 

 ly glad to get back to his first wife — the 

 faithful companion, perhaps, for forty 

 years or more, if it could be done. The 

 divorced wife frequently had nearly or 

 quite as much to do in accumulating the 

 riches as the millionaire himself; and yet 

 after the divorce she is put off with a 

 mere pittance. Let me suggest to you 

 John Jacob Astor, who recently died in 

 the Titanic. In his will the faithful old 

 wife was comparatively unrecognized, 



