NOVEMBER 1, 1912 



Our Homes 



A. I. ROOT 



When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith 

 on the earth? — Luke 18:8. 



For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for 

 your faults, ye shall take it patiently ? but if, when 

 ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, 

 this is acceptable with God. — II. Peter 2:20. 



Father, forgive them, for thev know not what 

 they do. — Luke 23:34. 



Let all bitterness and wrath and auger and 

 clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, 

 with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, 

 forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's 

 sake hath forgiven you. — Eph. 4:31, 32. 



Of course I can not tell how many pro- 

 fessing Christians and devout followers of 

 the Lord Jesus Christ are feeling sad — 

 yes, veiy sad — to note the lack of Chris- 

 tian spirit shown hy the various candidates 

 for the presidential chair at this veiy time. 

 If there is any time in the world when 

 the candidate for an important office should 

 set a good example h\ showing before the 

 world a gentlemanly and Christian spirit, 

 now is the time. Once more, if Christian- 

 ity and a Christian spirit is ever needed, it 

 is needed just now. On some of our coins 

 we read, "In Grod we trust ;" but ai'e we 

 not really trusting in the biggest fighter? 

 If the fighting were altogether for right- 

 eousness, say for the destruction of the 

 liquor business, we might demand the- best 

 fighter ; but even then we need one like 

 Gideon who was fighting under the ban- 

 ner of the great God above. If I am cor- 

 rect, President Taft has never professed 

 to be a member of any church, although we 

 have been told his leaning is toward the 

 Unitarian faith; and I wish to say to his 

 credit that he did, at least at first, show 

 much of a Christian spirit. I rejoiced to 

 hear him come out plainly before the world 

 and say he does not drink, and that in his 

 opinion a President of the United States 

 ought not to drink. Roosevelt has, in some 

 of his addresses, said some very good thing's 

 on the side of Christianitj^; but, oh dear 

 me ! what an example he has set before 

 the people of our land, especially the 

 younger ones ! I can not think it possible 

 that one who lives a pure and spotless 

 life before God need ever indulge in such 

 invectives as Mr. Roosevelt has been doing 

 continually. I think that Christian people 

 as a rule have all been pained to see the 

 woeful lack of the Christian spirit between 

 the two great candidates for the presi- 

 dency. Do we really believe the little mot- 

 to on our coins — ''In God we trust"? Right 

 here I recall that Mr. Roosevelt made an 

 attempt to have this legend removed from 

 our coins; but, may the Lord be praised, 

 the protest from the Christian people, or 



I might say from a Christian nation, was 

 too great, and the reading still stands. 



WoodroAv AVilson, up to the present time, 

 lias shown a better spirit than either Taft 

 or Roosevelt, so far as I can learn; but 

 my complaint against Mr. Wilson would 

 be for his faults of omission rather than 

 for those of commission. While everybody 

 knows, and the whole wide Avorld recog- 

 nises, that strong drink at the present time 

 overshadows every other evil in our land, 

 he is silent, evidently handicapped by the 

 party he represents. 



In a recent issue I gave the platform 

 of the Prohibition party. Now, this plat- 

 form is all that can be desired, for it 

 breathes the spirit of "the Lamb of God 

 that taketh away the sin of the world;" and 

 in resjionse to friend Doolittle and others 

 I have been reading Chatin's addresses, and 

 much of the Vindicator, Atn. Advance,* 

 and Cleati Politics, all Prohibition period- 

 icals. Surely, thought I, I shall "find faith 

 on earth," and brotherly love, in these 

 periodicals; but in sadness I am obliged 

 to say that, in this fierce scramble for of- 

 fice, I see that same unchristianlike spirit 

 shown toward other candidates. I have 

 longed — yea, hungered — to see something of 

 the spirit quoted "in our texts. Let me il- 

 lustrate : 



Our pastor in his sermon, last evening, 

 related to us a beautiful fable. As nearly 

 as I can recall, it was something like this: 

 One bright morning, just at the break of 

 day, a gravel walk and a little plant called 

 mignonette were su]iposed to be having a 

 little talk. The mignonette said to the 

 oTavel walk, in a cheery way, "Good morn- 

 ing." The gravel walk replied, "Good 

 morning" in return, and then added, "My 

 little friend, what makes you so bright 

 and cheerful and full of fragrance to-day f 

 Xow listen to the reply: 

 "My good friend, I am bright and cheer- 

 ful and full of fragrance because I have 

 been trodden upon." 



"Trodden upon ?" replied the gravel walk. 

 "Whv, how should being trodden upon 



* By the way, I am pained to see in the Ameri- 

 ran Advance of Oct. 5 a hideous cartoon of Taft 

 Wilson, and Roosevelt. Of course, it is along 

 temperance lines; but I feel sure that the earnest, 

 sober Christian people of our land feel as I do 

 that the President, and, for that matter, a vice- 

 president of the United States should never be car- 

 tooned. Even if we do not indorse and in all 

 tiling's respect the man, shall we not at least re- 

 spect the sacred office he has been chosen to fill? 



"There is so much good in the worst of us, and 

 so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly be- 

 hooves tiny of us to talk about the rest of us. 



