1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



403 



OUR 



HOMES, 



BY A.I. ROOT. 



And he said unto them in parables, How can Satan 

 cast out Satan ? — Mark 3 :23. 



In olden time the Savior said, most emphat- 

 ically, that Satan was not the proper person 

 to uphold law and to put down the works of 

 the Devil. In connection with the words of 

 our text, " How can Satan cast out Satan?" 

 Jesus says, "And if Satan rise up against him- 

 self, and be divided, he can not stand, but 

 hath an end." I believe all the world has as- 

 sented to this through the ages that are past ; 

 but in recent times, even within the past few 

 years, there seems to be a class in community 

 who evidently think it is possible for Satan to 

 cast out Satan. Let us go back a little. There 

 seems to be a strange feature in humanity that 

 makes it love to view and dwell on suffering. 

 When a chicken's head is to be taken off, the 

 children will all run to see it unless mamma 

 or possibly papa himself says no. Even 

 though these things seem to be necessary, it 

 is not well for children to be around while 

 they are being done. Children of an older 

 growth all run and push through the crowd 

 to get a glimpse of somebody who has been 

 injured in an accident. A good many times 

 the police have hard work to keep the crowd 

 away so as to give a woman air when she has 

 fainted on a hot day. Why do they all run 

 and elbow each other, and push and jostle just 

 because somebody is suffering ? Is it sympa- 

 thy and love for our ftllow-man ? I fear it is 

 not. Of late there seems to be a great mania 

 to see a suicide, or, if we can not see it, to read 

 all the disgusting details in the papers. I have 

 often thought there would be fewer suicides 

 if people would just bury the body decently 

 and say as little about it as possible — that is, 

 if such a thing could be done. I believe 

 teachers, doctors, ministers, and humanitari- 

 ans, agree with me. If a man is to be hanged, 

 people congregate from miles around — that is, 

 they did so when hanging was public. Our 

 authorities, however, decided long ago that 

 such punishment should be made in private ; 

 and then it turned out that they could not 

 make it private. A crowd or the rabble, if 

 you choose, would tear down the fence, or de- 

 mand, in spite of constable or police, that they 

 be permitted to look on and witness the dying 

 man's agonies. I well remember in our town 

 of Medina when a man was hanged for the 

 murder of a whole family. I think they made 

 a pretense of putting up a fence around the 

 gallows. But the fence disappeared the night 

 before ; and, if I am right, the men who put it 

 up calculated that such would be the case, so 

 they did not waste much on nails or lumber. 

 Perhaps I might as well say that I myself was 

 a witness of the hanging, but I did not help 

 tear the fence down. This happened before I 

 was a Christian. 



Now, I do not mean to say that I am entire- 

 ly free from the mania that seems to possess 

 the general run of people in this respect, for I 



would probably go now with the crowd if my 

 conscience did not admonish me it was wrong. 

 I hope my readers will never imagine that I 

 am temperate and peaceable because I have no 

 inclinations to be sinful. God knows, if no- 

 body else does, that it costs me many a strug- 

 gle to do right. 



Now, why do people wish to see a man 

 hanged ? Why did I shut my store and leave 

 my business, and go off with the crowd to see 

 a man hanged, whom I knew so well that I 

 might almost call him a neighbor? In olden 

 time the American Indians used to have a 

 "big picnic" when they captured a prisoner 

 and put him to death. Hanging was too tame 

 and too speedy. There was not torture enough 

 about this method ; so they burned him at the 

 stake with a slow fire. Away back through 

 the early ages it used to be a fashion to give 

 prisoners to wild beasts, and great crowds 

 gathered to see the victims torn limb from 

 limb. Yes, even the nobles and the royal 

 family themselves, with their fine ladies, came 

 out to witness such exhibitions of cruelty. 

 Later on they had bull-fights ; and, even 

 though a man by his skill and great muscular 

 strength might come out victorious through 

 many a conflict, the bloodthirsty populace 

 must keep him at it until they found a dumb 

 brute that could gore him to death. I suppose 

 such a death was considered a full reward for 

 all his bravery and intrepidity. Why, we have 

 have had quite a little difficulty, even of late, 

 in enforcing laws in the United States against 

 bull-fights ; and finally somebody thought it 

 would be better to rule out the dumb beasts 

 entirely and let two men fight together. I 

 wish I could say that our United States of 

 America had shut down on prize-fighting en- 

 tirely. May God hasten the time when these 

 things will be remembered as only relics of 

 former ages. The motto on our coins still 

 reads, "In God we trust." Oh that it were 

 true we were trusting in God to such an extent 

 that our people would refuse to go to places 

 of public resort simply to see one man torture 

 another ! 



There is one thing that modern times have 

 not as yet revived (in the way of horrors 

 that make one's blood run cold), and that is 

 cannibalism. When we speak of a race of 

 people or of a locality where they are canni- 

 bals, that one word seems to express in itself 

 the most fearful depths to which humanity can 

 sink. But I have actually been afraid, if 

 these things go on, that sooner or later canni- 

 balism would be revived. At a recent prize- 

 fight, we are told, when one of the men by 

 brute strength began to wear out his opponent, 

 the crowd, who were hungering and thirsting 



after what? Righteousness? no, they were 



hungering and thirsting for bloodshed ; they 

 wanted to see the man to whom God had giv- 

 en the greater endurance murder his weaker 

 opponent They yelled to the victor, "Kill 

 him ! kill him ! " Did they want the man kill- 

 ed because he was guilty of some crime ? No, 

 no ! They had no spite against him at all. 

 Their feelings had simply become wrought up 

 to a pitch where they wanted to see somebody 

 die. We are told the American Indians used to 



