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Gleanings in Bee Culture 



simple ways of living outdoors, I said that, 

 so far as I could gather, Mr. Sinclair was 

 not a Christian. I wondered that a man 

 should be doing such philanthropic work 

 for the world and still refuse to acknowledge 

 the claims of the I^ord .Jesus Christ. I con- 

 fess I felt afraid of him, and a little suspi- 

 cious too. Now imagine my consternation 

 and the pain I felt to see the following in 

 the Cleveland Plain Dealer, sent from New 

 York, Aug. 23: 



Upton Sinclair, author and social colonizer, in a 

 surprising statement to-night announced his inten- 

 tion to bring a suit for divorce. In his statement 

 Mr. Sinclair declares that his wife this morning 

 wrote him a letter so clearly indicating her affec- 

 tion for a certain young poet that he has no hope 

 of a reconciliation. 



The action of Mr. Sinclair in giving out such a 

 statement surprised his friends and co-workers in 

 the social colony of which he is the head. He has 

 repeatedly given his views on the marriage vow 

 and ties, and some of these views seemed to indi- 

 cate a belief on his part that husband and wife 

 could at any time separate should they find the 

 marriage burdensome. On one occasion Sinclair 

 said: 



" When my wife and I fell in love with each other 

 we talked the whoJe marriage business over very 

 conscientiously. We both hated the idea of being 

 tied together by either a religious or legal cere- 

 mony, and we tried to make up our minds to set 

 the right kind of example to the world. 



"But we knew Mrs. Sinclair's father and mother 

 would go raving crazy if we did what our con- 

 sciences told us was right; so, to ease their minds, 

 we let some one mumble a few words over us and 

 made them happy. We are married, and now we 

 have seen the world and know a great many mar- 

 ried people, and we are a good deal ashamed of be- 

 in^ married ourselves. 



Marriage in this day is nothing but legalized 

 slavery. That is the niost polite word to call it, I 

 fancy. The average married woman is bought just 

 as much as any horse or any dog is bought." 



We can forgive Upton Sinclair for being 

 like many other good men — a socialist; but 

 I do not know how we can excuse him for 

 being a "free lover," if the foregoing state- 

 ment is true. Away back in my childhood 

 there was some sort of sect that had a brief 

 existence (thank God it was brief) who 

 advocated free love; and if I am correct this 

 thing has come up a few times since; but 

 humanity, I am glad to say, frowned it 

 down. There are, or at lea^t used to be, 

 quite a few who did not accept the gospel of 

 Christ Jesus; but all of these, with very few 

 exceptions, held fast to the marriage relation 

 as handed down to us by our ancestors and 

 the sanction of the Holy Scriptures. But 

 Mr. Sinclair coolly says, if the report above 

 is true, that he and his wife would never 

 have been married at all, but they finally 

 did have some words "mumbled "over them 

 in order to keep Mrs. Sinclair's father and 

 mother from going " raving crazy " (let us 

 thank God Mrs. Sinclair had a father and 

 mother who were sensible), and, therefore, 

 now propose to part! If there is any thing 

 in the whole wide universe connected with 

 humanity that should be held more solemn 

 and sacred than the marriage relation, I do 

 not know of it. One of the papers has inti- 

 mated that Mrs. Sinclair has a child; but a 

 book he put out in regard to health gives 

 not only a picture of himself and wife but 

 of th*ee children. Just think of the mother 

 of three children, and a mother who has 



posed before the world with her husband as 

 a reformer on the matter of diet, and as a 

 leader toward higher and better things — 

 think of such a woman proposing to leave 

 her husband and children and go off with a 

 "poet " just because she took a fancy to him! 

 History tells us again and again of good, 

 faithful, and honest men who were proof 

 against all the temptations that money 

 could offer. In the shameful exposures now 

 going on in Columbus in regard to the sena- 

 tors, the papers tell us that when they got 

 hold of a man who could not be tempted 

 with money they employed some skillful 

 woman of good looks and winning ways 

 (but of doubtful character) to do the work. 

 Ever since the days of Adam and Eve, Satan 

 has played havoc and ruin among the hu- 

 man family by means of what the Bible 

 terms the "strange woman." Here is what 

 the Bible says about it: 



Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, 

 and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thy 

 heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her 

 paths. For she hath cast down many wounded; 

 yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her 

 house is the way to hell, going down to the cham- 

 bers of death. 



Mrs. Sinclair is a very handsome woman. 

 When they gave her picture in 3fcClure's 

 Magazine, fixing her up with all the skill 

 that these folks who i)icture handsome wo- 

 men bring to bear, I said to Mrs. Root I was 

 afraid that Mrs. Sinclair's good looks, with- 

 out Christ Jesus in her heart, would bring 

 trouble. We do not know who is most to 

 blame — the woman or the "poet." When 

 he found out that Sinclair himself had no 

 objection to his making love to his wife — a 

 married woman and a mother — of course he 

 was not slow in taking advantage. When 

 I was a child they used to have a fashion of 

 suggesting and sometimes using "tar and 

 feathers" for such men. I am glad the 

 fashion has been done away with, along 

 with other savage and heathen customs. 

 Instead of tar and feathers, the scathing 

 criticisms and sarcasm seen in the daily 

 press ought to be more keenly felt than the 

 tar and feathers. Sinclair and his wife and 

 this poet (he is not worthy of having his 

 name mentioned) are getting enough of it. 

 I am getting to be what the world calls an 

 "old man." I have seen considerable of 

 humanity. I have been through the mill. 

 I have felt Satan's claws. The scars of his 

 clutches may not show on my body; but 

 they have been left on my conscience and 

 on my spiritual life. There has been a good 

 deal said in regard to the evil the daily ])a- 

 pers are doing in publishing crime. This 

 may be true; but I am sure, notwithstand- 

 ing, that our daily ])apers are doing us good 

 in telling us about the downfall of men and 

 women, and ivhy they fell. They listened 

 to Satan. Miss Florence Richards, in a 

 temperance talk last night, Sept. 17, said 

 some people do not believe in a personal 

 devil, they declaring it all a myth. But 

 some good woman replied by asking who it 

 was, then, or zvhaf it was, that was at the 

 bottom of all the crime and misery that are 



