GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April, 1917 



the circumstances, it looks very much as if 

 (he parties had better separate; but I do not 

 tliink I have ever advised a separation. If 

 even one of the two is a professing Chris- 

 tian, the troubles may almost always be 

 fixed up. 



The saddest part of the divorce business 

 comes in where there are children. Often- 

 times I have said to the parents, " Thes^ 

 are your children. You are father and 

 mother to them, and always will be. There 

 is no power on earth to make it otherwise." 



T have said to the children, " He is your 

 father, and no power on earth can change it. 

 A sacred obligation rests on you that can 

 never be changed." 



T said in substance the same thing to the 

 father. I am glad that I cannot recall that 

 (here was ever any necessity of saying so 

 much to the mother. Just imagine, if you 

 please, the effect on the children when there 

 is a quarrel between their pai'ents. What a 

 sad thing to contemplate ! I have said, and 

 say it again, for the sake of the children if 

 for nothing else, stick together in some s;ut 

 of fashion rather than separate. 



Sometimes I am told by one or both, 

 " God did not bring us together. It was 

 just our Own foolish blundering." 



To this I reply, " My friends, you con- 

 sented to this union before God. You ask- 

 ed God to witness, and the command is 

 binding upon you. You are together — there 

 is no getting rid of it. You are father and 

 mother to the children that are an addition- 

 al seal to the contract or bargain. They are 

 your own children, and no power on earth 

 (an make it otherwise." 



Many business houses at the present time 

 say, in different ways, '' Money back if you 

 ore not satist]ed." That is, after you have 

 received the goods and given them a test, 

 if tliey do not prove exactly as represented 

 or what you expected, you can send them 

 back and have your money. My good friend, 

 yen cannot take a Avife in that way. I do 

 not know but the experiment has been tried 

 by- a class of people who call themselves 

 "free lovers" or something of that scrt; 

 but it has never worked. Such plans are a 

 scheme of the devil, and wreck and ruin 

 follow. What are you going to do with 

 children as the result of such a proceeding? 

 The laws of man and laws of nature pi"o- 

 test against such inventions. 



Years ago we used to have a sort of lunch- 

 room or restaurant for the benefit of era- 

 |)loyees, especially those who live too far 

 away to go home to dinner. One day the 

 woman in charge of the lunch-room called 

 me ip. Pointing to a low-lived-looking cliap 

 who sat at the table she said, " Mr. Root, 



(liis fellow came in here and ordered dinner. 

 As it was before dinnertime 1 went to work 

 and got up a dinner for him as good as I 

 know how, and now he says he has no 

 money. What are you going to do about 

 it?" 



My first impulse was to hunt up a good 

 club and tell him that units-! he paid over 

 the 25 cents for the dinner he had ordered 

 I would "take it out of his hide." I think 

 that must have been before I enlisted as a 

 Christian. The more I thought it over the 

 more I decided there was nothing to do. So 

 I said, as meekly as I could, " ]\Iy frie:id, 

 you probably mean that the next time you 

 come along here you will pay the 25 cents 

 you owe us? " 



Of course he gave the jn'omise quite 

 cheerfully. Now, this may be a homely 

 illustration: but it strikes me that all man- 

 kind, from the least to the greatest, should 

 regard the marriage contract soni.?thing in 

 the same way. It cannot be undone. There 

 is no such thing as " money back if you are 

 not satisfied " between man and wife. 



Now, I confess, dear friends, this is quite 

 a long preamble to a clipping from the 

 Sunday School Times. If all our readers 

 would subscribe to the Times T would not 

 need to give so much space to extracts here. 



An ideal nation will always do right. No nation 

 is or has been ideal. We have not always done 

 right. We have again and again violated treaties. 

 We have broken our word. We have made promises 

 and have not kept them. We are in no position to 

 judge other nation.s. By what judgment we judge 

 them we ourselves are condemned. We need to re- 

 pent for our own misdoing and not play the Pharisee 

 in any boast of superior national virtue. 



The evils of divorce and the saloon will not exist 

 in an ideal nation. Bishop Moroland, of Sacra- 

 mento, says: 



" The average for the nation is one divorce in 

 twelve marriages ; for the Far West, one to five. 

 The highest record heretofore has been held by .Tap- 

 an, where the proportion was one to three prior to 

 1897. In that year Japan, determined to rise to a 

 more decent civilization, adopted a uniform divorce 

 law, and since then has never exceeded the rate of 

 one to six. 



" The census shows that in 1864, when the popu- 

 lation of the United States was 30,000,000, there were 

 85.51 divorces granted. In 1914, with a population 

 of 90,000,000, the divorces numbered 110,759. The 

 pipulation has in<'reased three times ; divorce, twelve 

 times. Tn a half-century our neighbor, Canada, 

 allowed but 600 divorces, the United States 2,063,- 

 812. Over 20,000 Canadians crossed the border to 

 obtain divorce in this country. Our evil example 

 makes it harder for a sister Christian nation to 

 maintain a pure family life. Forty per cent of the 

 children in reformatories and orphanages of the 

 i^aciCic Coast are offspring of divorced parents. Di- 

 vorce is the darkest cloud on our American life." 



And what boast has any nation that it can make 

 when it suffers the liquor traffic to control its poli- 

 tirs, to impoverish its wealth, and to debauch its 

 life? 



The nation needs God, not on its coins only, but 

 also in its life. 



