1904 



(iLF.ANINCS IN BEF. CULTURK. 



probably a good long- while ago fortv or 

 fifty years, for example. At that tune the}- 

 did not use furnaces in the basement to 

 keep the floors warm as they do now; so I 

 think we shall have to jump ahead all these 

 years and come up to the present time. We 

 will suppose you are about b4 years old 

 (just my age), and that your wife is a year 

 or two younger. Dear brother, do you now, 

 after all these years, take those cold tired 

 feet in the big warm palms of j'our hands — 

 those tired feet that have traveled unceas- 

 ins^ly for you and 3ours all these fortj- or 

 fifty 3'ears? Do you now often take that 

 dear faithful woman in your arms as you 

 did when 3'ou were first married? Have 

 you been in the daily habit of holding her 

 thus and kissing the gray hairs as they 

 came to view one by one? If you have not, 

 then let me tell j'ou you have not ^one. every 

 thing you could to save her from sickness 

 and death. May be in all these years you 

 have paid out much money for doctors' bills 

 that might have been saved had you loved 

 her and kissed her and caressed her often- 

 er than jou have done. You may urge that 

 a busj' farmer or mechanic has no time to 

 sit down and cuddle his wife, and call her 

 pretty names as he did when they were 

 young. But, my good friend, such things 

 might save a " heap " of travel in the night 

 in going after the doctor. They might save 

 the expense and presence of a hired girl in 

 your home. Why, I have heard of farmers' 

 wives who had not received a loving kiss 

 from the busy pushing man of the house in 

 a whole year. No wonder that trouble, 

 sickness, and death invaded the home. 



And, my dear good friend, there is a 

 worse thing threatening the homes of our 

 land just now than sickness and death; yes, 

 perhaps I might say a worse thing than in- 

 sanity. Go and visit your county infirma- 

 ry; take a look at the wives and mothers 

 assembled there. Such a fate is sad, I ad- 

 mit; but that of an unhappy divorced man 

 and wife is even worse. Our dailies have 

 just told us of a woman who married anoth- 

 er man in just twenty niiyiutes after the di- 

 vorce was granted I Well, I suppose she 

 could do so legally if she chose. Now, the 

 dailies did not tell us any thing about what 

 went before; but we may guess there was 

 no particular trouble with her former hus- 

 band except that he stood in the way. She 

 had placed her afifections (?) on another 

 man; and when she got rid of her lawful 

 husband she fairly " hustled " to get mar- 

 ried to man No. 2. Years ago, when a 

 schoolboy, I came to a problem in algebra 

 where the result could be projected and 

 written on the blackboard without solving 

 the problem at all. You started out two or 

 three steps until you saw the way the thing 

 was working, and then jumped away over 

 to the conclusion, and got exactly the same 

 result as if 3'ou had gone through a pile of 

 figures. Now, we may safely predict (in 

 like manner) that this woman who got mar- 

 ried in twenty minutes after her divorce 

 will be looking out very soon for husband 



No. 3; and if she is not stopped, nobody 

 knows how many there will be. When Sa- 

 tan gets a pupil well under way, he does 

 not often let that pupil go. I do not know 

 whether the first husband was at fault in 

 not loving his wife; but I think it quite like- 

 ly he was largely; but perhaps the woman 

 was more at fault. 



Who can tell what pain and anguish of 

 spirit a parent may feel, especially when 

 this union before God has been sealed and 

 cemented by raising a family of children, 

 when either parent is obliged to feel that 

 the other is unfaithful! A friend once told 

 me some of his experience. Satan tried to 

 get the poison into his heart. But he rec- 

 ognized him, and prayed in anguish, "Get 

 thee behind me, Satan." His storj' inter- 

 ested me at that time, because it gave me a 

 glimpse of the suffering and anguish that 

 may rend a faithful and devoted heart. It 

 was a rather strange experience; and as it 

 may prove to be a warning to some others 

 I am going to let him tell you about it in his 

 own words as nearly as I can remember. 



THE man's story. 



When I was away out in the mountains 

 of California, a little homesick, Satan 

 brought up a long- forgotten memory of the 

 past. He said, " Of course, 5'our good wife 

 is a model woman, as all the world knows; 

 but awaj' back, some forty years ago, if 

 you will just think of it, there was at least 

 a little time when she was not as loyal to 

 you as she might have been." 



I repudiated the suggestion at once, and 

 tried to get it out of my mind; but in spite 

 of every thing I could do, especially when I 

 was traveling alone among strangers, mem- 

 ory (or perhaps we had better say Satan) 

 went to picking up little bits of facts (at 

 least the adversary asserted they were 

 facts) and piecing them together until I was 

 not only miserable, but began to cherish 

 feelings that were prett}' nearly unkind to- 

 ward my dear devoted wife. I decided I 

 would question her in regard to the matter, 

 even if it was away back ("ages ago") as 

 soon as I got home. When I looked into her 

 dear eyes I felt ashamed of myself. But 

 Satan had got a little bit of a foothold. 

 Every few days memory would supply some- 

 thing further in regard to the matter until 

 quite a little structure had been built up. 

 At last I decided, even though it should an- 

 noy and pain her, I would tell her what 

 was going on in my mind; and I felt so 

 ashamed of myself, while bringing up some- 

 thing of years ago, that I almost had to do 

 it with downcast eyes; and, oh how quick- 

 ly Satin's fabric vanished when she looked 

 me in the face with a happy innocent laugh 

 and explained everything! I had forgotten 

 the order of events, and got things mixed, 

 and she was entirely innocent of the whole 

 matter. For several days afterward, when 

 I went into the house she would look up to 

 me with a most bewitching smile and say 

 something like this: 



" And so you rf/rf think, dear old huz, that 

 there was a time in my life when I actually 



