Oct. 1. 1911 



605 



®W\P ^flODUD' 



A. I. Root. 



Behold the I>ainb of (iod that taketh away the 

 sin of the world.— John 1 : 29. 



There is none other name under heaven given 

 among men, whereby we must be saved. — Acts 4:12. 



Thou shalt not commit adultery.— Ex. 20 : 14. 



AVhat therefore God hath joined together, let not 

 man put asunder. — Matt. 19 :6. 



Our first text has always been a favorite 

 one of mine. It has been to me one of the 

 most hopeful texts in the \a hole Bible. These 

 words were uttered by John the Baptist. It 

 seems to me that even John himself did not 

 begin to realize the wonderful and tremen- 

 dous truth embodied in that brief sentence 

 of only a few words. Well, dear friends, it 

 has within just a few days come to me that 

 not only are these words true, but, still 

 further, nothing else in this whole wide uni- 

 verse can take away the ".sin of the world." 

 Other things have Iseen tried and are being 

 tried: but the Lamb of God is the only rem- 

 edy and the only cure. In our second text 

 we have the words of Scripture to indorse 

 this very thing. These are the words of 

 Peter after his baptism and new birth: 

 " There is none other name under heaven 

 given among men, whereby we must be 

 saved." And the more I see of the world, 

 tlie more I am convinced that there is no 

 other safe and sure remedy for sin. 



Some years ago a great discovery was 

 made here in a certain part of Ohio, called 

 the "gold" cure, and a good Christian, a 

 reader of (Ileaxings, wanted me to help it 

 through these Home ])apers. He wanted 

 me to helj) poor struggling humanity out of 

 the bondage of a fearful appetite, by admin- 

 istering a drug, the gold cure I asked him 

 to go to the pastor of his church and get an 

 endorsement of the work the gold cure was 

 doing. A Congregational minister gave me 

 a very favorable report. Then I asked this 

 ])astor of the church if the folks who were 

 cured by the gold cure became Christians 

 and united with the church. He seemed to 

 think I was demanding too much, and re- 

 plied something like this: "Why, Mr. Root, 

 you might as well insist that a man who 

 has been cured of typhoid fever should be- 

 come a Christian when he gets well." I 

 spoke of it here in these pages; and I said 

 the man who had been cured of typhoid 

 fever, or any thing else, would do a very 

 sensible thing if he would become a Chris- 

 tian and "give God the praise" when he 

 got well. You notice I could not accept 

 the idea that there was any real substan- 

 tial cure for any thing unless the "Lamb 

 of God " came in somewhere sooner or later. 

 Most of you probably know how the gold 

 cure has turned out. A good friend of mine, 

 who spent quite a sum of money in going 

 to the gold-cure sanitarium, seemed all right 

 for a few weeks or a few months. He final- 

 ly, however, was back to his old habits. In 

 talking with him about it afterward he said 

 something like this: "Mr. Root, there has 



never been any thing invented, and never 

 will be, that will prevent a man from get- 

 ting drunk when he takes a notion to do so." 



Tlaere it is, friends, and there is a whole 

 sermon in that little speech. The only cure 

 or remedy is to take away the disposition 

 to wish to get drunk — to be born again, as 

 Jesus expresses it; and only the Lamb of 

 God that taketh away the sin of the world 

 can bring about this new birth. Of course, 

 much may be done to help the sinner by 

 getting rid of the saloons, and by getting 

 away from bad companions and removing 

 temptation; but so long as the disposition 

 remains the same, to use the language of 

 our text, "There is none other name under 

 heaven, whereby we must be saved." 



^^'ell, what brings this whole matter to 

 mind this morning is a notice in the papers, 

 which most of you have seen, to the effect 

 that Upton Sinclair and his wife are going 

 to part; and the strange part of it — the un- 

 precedented feature — is that L'pton, we are 

 told, whom I have held as being ahnost a 

 model in these pages, sits by calmly while 

 the wife admits she would like to leave him 

 and go away with another man who is also 

 one of the little crowd of three. You will re- 

 member there has been a lot said about the 

 "unwritten law." Somebody has under- 

 taken or succeeded in ' ' alienating ' ' the affec- 

 tions of the wife — perhaps the mother of the 

 family. 



The lawful husband, whose home has 

 been wrecked, or is about to be wrecked, 

 shoots down the assassin, or the man who 

 is worse than one. He shoots him down be- 

 cause he has robbed him of something that 

 silver and gold, and not even millions of 

 money, can ever repay. The community 

 and the courts let him go scot free — at least 

 they do sometimes; and the excuse given is 

 what has been termed the " unwritten law." 

 (In this case, I^pton, instead of shooting the 

 man, as I understand it, sits with them a 

 consenting party.) Of course I do not justi- 

 fy the shooting. I do not believe it is best 

 to take the law into one's own hands under 

 any circumstances — that is, unless a mid- 

 night assassin might shoot you unless you 

 shot him first, or unless he might shoot 

 your wife and children unless you killed 

 him first. To tell the truth, I ain not sure 

 that even this is the best and proper thing 

 to do, for it necessitates keeping a loaded 

 gun or pistol in the home. 



In Our Homes for July 1, 1910, I quoted 

 from Upton Sinclair in regard to his starva- 

 tion remedy; in fact, I had quoted him quite 

 at length before then. I spoke about his 

 emancipating his good wife from the drudg- 

 ery of prejiaring three square meals a day. 

 In commenting on his starvation cure I said, 

 "Who is Sinclair, and has he been a sen- 

 sible man hitherto?" At another time, 

 when I indorsed his articles in regard to se- 

 curing health by the use of simple food and 



