JUNE 1, 1914 



435 



OUE HOME 



■Editoir 



When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh 

 even his enemies to be at peace with him. — Prov. 

 16:7. 



Dear friends, I have a wonderful story to 

 tell you; and (may the Lord be praised) it 

 is a true story. A few days ago a very 

 prettily bound book of about 160 pages 

 came through the mails. A printed slip in 

 the fore part of the book reads as follows : 



As a brother-editor I am sending you this book, 

 hoping that you will peruse it, and not only enjoy it 

 but profit by it, and then give it a review in your 

 iniper. FRED ROHRER, Berne, Ind. 



The book is indeed "stranger than fiction." 

 I suppose most of you read in the papers 

 (some years ago) or heard something about 

 it at the time, that a temperance worker's 

 home was dynamited by saloonkeepers be- 

 cause he tried to enforce the law. Well, this 

 book was written by the man whose house 

 was dynamited, and who was assaulted and 

 pounded in the streets and in his office; but 

 as he trusted in God he was not so easily 

 scared out of town. As the preface is very 

 short we give it here entire : 



The object of this book is threefold: 



1. To praise God for victory after a long and bit- 

 ter war of constant battling between the forces of 

 heaven and hell. 



2. To encourage young people to do right because 

 it is right, no matter what people say ; for right wins 

 in the end. 



3. To nerve temperance people individually to law 

 enforcement, for this, coupled with faith in God, is 

 the key that solves the temperance problem. 



As I take it, Bro. Rohrer is a Mennonite ; 

 and, if I am -correct, the Mennonites are 

 what is sometimes called a non-resistant 

 class of people. They do not believe in 

 striking back, and their motto seems to be 

 to return good for evil. On page 9 we read 

 as follows : 



The towns are named after Bern and Geneva, 

 Switzerland, because the early settlers of this com- 

 munity hailed from the land of W^ilhelm Tell; and 

 about 80 per cent of the population of Berne and 

 vicinity speak the Swiss dialect to this day. 



The above does not say he is a descendant 

 of William Tell, but the book seems to in- 

 dicate he has inherited the Tell spirit. We 

 clip the following from page 45 : 



About an hour after the events just told, when I 

 had returned to my office where I happened to be 

 alone, Abe Bagley, who was then president of our 

 town board, came in, first on business, then asked 

 why I had made him go before the grand jury. He 

 had also been seen going into saloons when they 

 should have been closed, and that's why his name 

 was handed in witli the rest. 



At that time our town officers would pat the sa- 

 loonkeepers on the back and tell them just to go 

 ahead and pay no attention to us; that ours was just 

 a mushroom enthusiasm which would soon die out ; 

 that we had a kind of crazy spell, and would get 

 over it after a while. 



I hadn't said many words when the town presi- 



dent came into my private apartment, behind the 

 desk, grabbed me around the waist, jerked me off my 

 stool, and knocked me on the floor. Just then the 

 door was opened, and in came some twenty men who 

 had been watching for just this moment. 



The above gives us a glimpse of the con- 

 dition of affairs in Berne, Ind., when this 

 young printer started out against great odds 

 to insist on law enforcement. He tells us of 

 several places where they had a mayor so 

 much in sympathy with the liquor gang that 

 he had a fashion of fining criminals " one 

 dollar and costs " when they came before 

 him for law-breaking. Let me now give you 

 an extract from pages 46 and 49 : 



Our town president proceeded to drag me out ; 

 but before he got me out of my private office I had a 

 chance to get on my feet again and caught hold with 

 both hands of the iron guards around my desk, and 

 I silently prayed to God to keep me from letting go. 

 The man of towering physique who had hold of me 

 again grabbed me around my waist, lifted me off my 

 feet and tried to jerk me loose until my hands were 

 blistered and skinned. Then he took hold of my 

 wrists and tried to work my hands loose from the 

 iron railing, so that both arms were swollen the next 

 morning. 



The mob was in a fury, and became impatient. 

 Some cried: 



" Bring him out, bring him out; why don't you? " 



He replied: 



" I can't take him out." 



Then others shouted : 



"Punch him, punch him! " 



Still others yelled: 



"Pound him, pound him! " 



As he brought his big fist down upon the back of 

 my head and on the neck in rapid succession I si- 

 lently prayed to God to help me bear it. And he did. 

 Bless your heart, God never goes back on a man 

 who doesn't go back on him. Although I saw the 

 stai-s fly in every direction at each stroke, they never 

 hurt me a bit. I never groaned, and never uttered 

 a sound during all the time the mob was in the office. 

 The town president hammered away on my head 

 until the town marshal, William Tucker, came and 

 with difficulty forced his way through the crowd and 

 ordered the men all out. 



I was reading proofs when the men came in ; and 

 as they left I picked up the papers that were scat- 

 tered over the floor and went straight to my work 

 again. The town marshal was standing in front 

 of my desk and watched me while I was marking 

 mistakes on the proof-sheet. Presently lie remarked: 



" This is going to be a bad night for you. I 

 wouldn't be in your shoes for a thousand dollars." 



"Why? " I asked. 



"Oh! they are red hot after you; and they will 

 get you to-night if they can. You'd better go home." 



" Well, if they want me they can get me at home 

 just as well as here." 



This incident has a bearing on something 

 that comes in at the end of the book. How 

 many Christians have we among us who 

 could stand treatment like that without 

 striking back? Friend Rohrer, it seems, 

 was given grace in answer to prayer to talk 

 kindly and good-naturedly to those who 

 threatened him, and finally knocked him 

 down and pounded him. Of course, those 



