Dec. 15, 1911 



767 



®w\p D^om 



A. I. Root 



My house shall be called the house of prayer; but 

 ye have made it a den of thieves.— Matt. 21 : 13. 



Pure religion and undefiled before ovir God and 

 Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in 

 their afHiction, and to keep himself unspotted from 

 the world.— James 1 : 27. 



I suppose it is natural for old people to 

 speak about the ' ' ji;ood old-fashioned times. ' ' 

 I do not know but it is natural for them to 

 think of the world as degenerating; that the 

 old-fashioned religion that includes loving 

 your neighbor as yourself has been crowded 

 out and trampled under foot in the rush 

 and scramble for new things and for glitter- 

 ing gold. May God in his infinite jnercy 

 help me, even though I am growing old, to 

 take a fair and unbiased view of spiritual 

 matters in particular, and of the whole wide 

 world in general. While I feel sad to think 

 that many good old-fashioned customs are 

 being laid aside, I hope I have grace enough 

 to recognize the^9/-or//'e,s.s that is being made, 

 even in honesty and truth, at the same 

 time; and that, while wdckedness is growing 

 and developing, as it seems to us sometimes 

 at a terrible rate, righteousness is also being 

 exalted, and souls are being gathered into 

 the kingdom. 



I suppose it is true that there is a scarcity 

 of able and efficient ministers in almost all 

 denominations — especially a diflficulty in 

 finding clergymen with clean and unspot- 

 ted records. This Home paper has been 

 prompted by a fear that many who prepare 

 for the ministry fail to recognize the sacred 

 and solemn responsibilities resting on the 

 one who stands behind the sacred desk and 

 breaks the bread of life to a hungering world. 

 While I have been feeling for some time 

 that there were here and there men pro- 

 claiming the gospel, more or less, in all de- 

 nominations, who ought not to stand be- 

 hind the sacred desk, I did not think so 

 much about it until I saw in the papers the 

 sad record of a young minister in New Eng- 

 land. He was called on to preach in a little 

 town, and in the evidence brought forward 

 w^e are told he said, on preaching his first 

 sermon, that he saw a very pretty young 

 woman in his audience. He tells this him- 

 self, if I am correct. He said that, from the 

 moment his eye alighted on her bright face, 

 he was preaching to her and to her only. 

 Now, to my mind this young preacher had 

 no business in the pulpit if he .had no more 

 sense of the sacredness of his yiosition than 

 to fix his eyes (and his mind) on a good- 

 looking girl or woman. I realize, when I 

 say this, that one of Satan's strongest holds 

 on humanity is right along this line. God 

 knows that I have had some experience in 

 this very matter. 



This young preacher very soon found that 

 the good-looking girl was the daughter of a 

 widow. She had no big brother nor a father 

 to look after her; and I suppose that most of 

 the big brothers and fathers would have 



taken it for granted that the girl was per- 

 fectly safe, as a matter of course, even if the 

 young preacher did have a good deal to say 

 to her. We are told that at an early date he 

 assured the anxious mother that they two 

 were engaged to be married. Of course this 

 young girl, whom the world had probably 

 never noticed very much, felt flattered by 

 the attentions that the handsome and gifted 

 young pastor of their church bestowed on 

 her. She made preparations as well as she 

 could with her humble means for the com- 

 ing wedding. She and some of her girl 

 friends, with childish simplicity, planned 

 for a rainbow wedding. The diflferent girls 

 to act as bridesmaids were to be arrayed, 

 each one in a costume of a color different 

 from the others, so as to represent the colors 

 of the rainbow. This young minister may 

 have had honest intentions.. He may have 

 expected to marry the girl and to be a faith- 

 ful pastor over the people in that little town. 

 Even if it were true that he had not yet been 

 "born again" (in the good old-fashioned 

 way) , he w^as smart and bright, and perhaps 

 eloquent in oratory, and preached good ser- 

 mons. Satan saw his chance, however. A 

 church in a neighboring city was looking 

 about for somebody to fill a vacant pulpit. 

 They got their eyes on this young Baptist 

 preacher. He had been working on the 

 humble salary of $800 a year. A millionaii'e 

 in that city — one who had furnished the 

 greater part of the money for building the 

 new church — got his eye on the young 

 preacher, and made him an offer of $2000. 

 A little back I spoke of the temptations that 

 often assail young ministers — for instance, 

 a girl with a pretty face. 



Well, now, this young pastor had a trial 

 in another way. Here was a chance to step 

 from poverty to comparative affluence, and 

 to go among a richer class of people. Al- 

 though I do not like the idea of a minister 

 being on the lookout for a bigger church 

 and for more pay, there may be nothing 

 l)articularly wrong in his accepting the new 

 pastorate. This young minister probably 

 planned, as a matter of course, to take along 

 the young wife to be. But besides the $2000 

 something else came across his pathway. 

 The millionaire had a good-looking daugh- 

 ter — perhaps as bright and interesting as 

 "the girl I left behind me;" and she being, 

 as a matter of course, much interested in 

 the young pastor the father had gotten hold 

 of, they too became quite intimate. We 

 suppose, of course, that the millionaire's 

 daughter knew nothing of the minister's 

 previous engagement. I^ike a silly fool, 

 this young preacher kept on going with both 

 young ladies, and was finally engaged to 

 both, to be married. When the widow and 

 her daughter saw it announced in the pa- 

 pers that the girl's betrothed was to be mar- 

 ried to the young heiress, he took the paper 

 down to tlie widow's home and explained 



