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Gleanings in Bee Culture 



A. I. Root 



It had been good forrthat-man if he [had not been 

 born.— Matt. 26 :24. 



I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting 

 the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 

 the third and fourth generation of them that hate 

 me.— lOx. 20 :5. 



A few days ago vie were to have a board 

 meeting. Some things were urgent, and we 

 were all assembled except Ernest. I had 

 seen him buta few minutes before; but when 

 he is busy he sometimes dodges about so 

 suddenly that it is hard to keep track of 

 him. While I was making inquiries I dis- 

 tinctly heard him talking. I looked in his 

 office, in Ruber's office, and opened doors 

 right and left; but although I continued to 

 hear him talking earnestly and plainly he 

 was nowhere to be found. His well-known 

 tones rang out sharp and clear from the 

 . empUj air. I stood with wide-open mouth 

 contemplating this new wonder in the uni- 

 verse; and then, dropping my eyes a little, 

 I saw a girl making the keys of her type- 

 writer rattle while the sounds from the pho- 

 nograph pointed in my direction; and then 

 the crowd around me laughed at my bewil- 

 derment. Just think of it! Sixty years ago 

 the children were telling in school that a 

 man across the way from the schoolhouse 

 had a machine that would make your pic- 

 ture stay in a looking-glass so it could be 

 shown among your friends. People would 

 not believe it; but in an incredibly short 

 time those old daguerreotype pictures were 

 being passed about. The people rejoiced, 

 and are rejoicing siUl, that we can not only 

 see our friends of a former generation, 

 but we can see how we looked sixty years 

 ago. And noiv after we are dead and gone, 

 onr children can not only see our pictures 

 but they can hear the well-known tones of 

 our voices— yes, long after we are laid away 

 in the silent tomb. The wonders of elec- 

 tricity are astonishing us day by day. One 

 of the papers recently stated that Edison 

 had invented a storage battery not much 

 larger nor heavier than a well-filled suit-case 

 that would run a little automobile a hundred 

 miles, and it could be stored in four minutes. 

 Perhaps this was an exaggeration, but some- 

 thing like it is fast coming. Wireless teleg- 

 raphy goes around the world. It is going 

 to helj) us explore the north and south poles 

 if there is any thing tl'ere worth exploring. 

 We are to have wireless telephones, and per- 

 haps wireless transmission of power. Ely- 

 ing-machines now carry packages to vessels 

 out on the sea, and come back again. 



In speaking of these wonderful achieve- 

 ments in the way of science and industry, 

 about two years ago I asked the readers of 

 Gleanings what would be the next; and a 

 good brother away off in California answer- 

 ed me that our Lord Jesus Christ was com- 

 intr back to the earth with healing in his 

 wings; and I honestly believe that the Holy 

 Ghost has commissioned me this sunnv 

 afternoon in July, 1911, to tell you how and 



in what shape he is going to answer the 

 prayers of his people. 



Now, dear friends, please do not be star- 

 tled, and hastily decide that your old friend 

 A. I. Root has for once in his life got off his 

 base when he announces to you that the 

 next stride in the way of lessening human 

 misery, sin, and crime will be in the line of 

 preventing people from being born. Jesus 

 just once in his life said of a certain person 

 (Judas), in the language of our text, "It 

 had been better for that man if he had not 

 been born." Sometimes we are tempted by 

 Satan to say, "I wish I had never been 

 born." This, of course, is a wrong and 

 wicked thought. No one who has ever been 

 accorded the gift of a human life should ever 

 so far forget himself in ingratitude to his 

 Creator as to make such a speech or harbor 

 such a thought. After God has given us a 

 human life to live, it is our first duty to 

 thank him for it, and, next, to make the best 

 possible use of existence. Now, do not mis- 

 understand me. When God issued the com- 

 mand, "Thou Shalt not kill," I am sure he 

 meant it to include ourselves. We have no 

 right to hasten our death in any way. I am 

 sure of this; and I feel impressed, also, that 

 we have no right under any circumstances 

 to hasten the death of an?/ one. It is a sa- 

 cred and solemn gift from the great Creator, 

 and we should preserve it under all circum- 

 stances to the last minute. Notwithstand- 

 ing this, I firmly believe the time is coming 

 when it will be right and proper to restrict 

 the indiscriminate peopling of the world 

 with criminals and imbeciles. In the issue 

 of the Cleveland Plain Dealer for July 22 

 the Board of Health of the State of Ohio has 

 an article on the "sterilization of those who 

 are mentally defective." Dr. R. H. Grube, 

 of Xenia, O., in an address, said, in speak- 

 ing of our asylums for imbeciles and insane, 

 "Two-thirds of the inmates of these institu- 

 tions ought never to have been born." 

 Further along in his address he says, "The 

 State of Ohio is paying more attention to 

 the extermination of hog cholera than it is 

 t<y the work of preventing the propagation 

 of imbecile citizens." Further along he 

 says, "In the State institution at Jefferson- 

 ville, Ind., there have been 500 cases of ster- 

 ilization, without a fatality or harmful re- 

 sult, and tu the vast betterment, both men- 

 tal and ])hysical, of the unfortunates." Just 

 one more quotation: " In one institution in 

 Indiana is a woman, born semi-imbecilic, 

 who has seven children, all imbeciles, and 

 a burden to themselves and to society. The 

 development of that family was a crime, the 

 like of which that State now wisely pre- 

 vents." 



Now, i^ardon me, dear readers, if I take a 

 stand that I have never taken before; and I 

 believe it is the Holy Spirit speaking through 

 me that suggests this measure. I^ast Sun- 

 day afternoon the Root Co. and all our neigh- 



