Dkckmp-KK, 19'J'2 



G L K A N I N G S IN B K E C U L T U R K 



801 



I liad stnrtcd out on the new track, ami 

 1 was as keen and anxious to know more 

 about it, and to see which way it was go- 

 ing to lead, as I was about any problem in 

 bee culture. And then it occurred to me 

 what I wanted was to get hold of the old 

 Bible tliat just a few days before was a 

 meaningless book. There was no Bible in 

 my store — in fact, there never had been. I 

 knew the good wife had one, and I rushed 

 home to get it. I began to read it; and the 

 more I read it the more deeply I became in- 

 terested. Dear "Sue" (bless her memory!) 

 finally suggested that it was after bed- 

 time." I think I replied truthfully, that I 

 was not quite ready. I do not know just 

 how long I read; but when I got to the bed- 

 side the dear wife was not asleep, but she 

 was irecpiiig; and the tears she shed were 

 tears of joy, and not sorrow. Let me digress 

 a little. 



T Avas just then full of experiments in bee 

 culture. In order to test the raising of bees 

 in winter time I had built a little green- 

 house partly under ground. In it was a 

 small colony (just a little nursery) with a 

 queen bee. The queen had been laying for 

 some days, but the eggs had not yet hatched 

 out into larvae; and thinking they needed 

 something more than the honey, I was feed- 

 ing them some rye flour as a substitute for 

 pollen. They were busily engaged in car- 

 rving in this pollen, and I could already see 

 the small larvae coming. Well, friends, I 

 had just returned from churcli, and had lis- 

 tened to one of the most wonderful sermons 

 to me T had ever heard in my life; and as 

 a result I could see myself, my past lif e,_ in 

 something the wav God sees it. I hurried 

 home, got down in that little greenhouse 

 with the bees, where they were busy at 

 work. I bowed my head and cried over my 

 past sins as God revealed them to me. I 

 cried until the sawdust at my feet was wet, 

 and my whole frame shook with convulsive 

 sobs.* And then I tried, between the sobs, 

 to ask the dear wife to forgive me, and he 

 lieve that T was a changed man from that 

 hour on. She afterward told me she had 

 been praving, and yet the years went by. 

 with no change, and she had somehow got 

 it into her mind that it was not possiUe that 

 I should ever get to be a follower of tlie 

 Lord Jesus Christ. 



Eight here, brothers and sisters, is the 

 point of this Home talk. When we were 

 courting we were happy. T thought I ap- 

 preciated the companion God had given me. 

 and I thought I loved her, yet that love was 

 vnfhinfi at nU compared with the love when 

 God's Holv Spirit opened mv eyes. And 

 this number of the Home papers is to the 

 fathers and mothers, and young people 

 who are courting. There can be no real, 

 happy courtship and life until you two rec- 

 ognize vour Creator firf^K and recognize, too, 

 that -the most sacred and solemn vow that 



*0n the wav home from church Mrs. Root sur- 

 mised what was comine. and soon followed me 

 down into '^he little greenhouse. 



man or woman can take is in agreeing to- 

 gether to unite and build up a liome. After 

 my emancipation, as we might call it, my 

 own irifc whom God gave mc was to me the 

 most beautiful and lovable woman on the 

 face of the ichole earth* 



Several weeks after my conversion she 

 said something like this: 



"My dear husband, if you are going to 

 continue to love mr and love the chihh'cn as 

 you have been doing for several weeks past, 

 I shall be the happiest woman living." 



And I felt also as if I should be tlie hap- 

 piest man (or one of the happiest) on this 

 whole earth, as we two worked together and 

 united in bringing our children up in the 

 fear of the Lord. 



I hope, dear friends, this Home paper 

 may be the means of stopping at least some 

 of the divorces which are getting to be so 

 common. If just one of the parties, either 

 husband or wife, will put the Lord Jesus 

 Christ first, and study God's holy word day 

 by day, there certainly will not be very 

 much chance of a divorce; and where both 

 of the parties are God-fearing people, di- 

 vorces ought to be almost if not quite an- 

 Jx-nown in this land of ours. Do you think 

 all the powers of earth or any of the 



*Let me- suggest right here that the Bible tells 

 us we should love our neisrhbor as ourself. Well. 

 what gave me such ancimsh was that I began to 

 recognize, that the word "neighbor" included the 

 dear wife; and I wish that all mankind could feel 

 as I did then, that the ne.arest and dear eat neighbor 

 any man in the whole wide world rnn have is the 

 wife, the mother of his children. The Holy Spirit 

 suggested to me something like this: "Old fellow, 

 what would you do should the dear wife think 

 exactly as ymi have been thinking?" You know well 

 enough, friends, what has been said about the 

 "double standard" for men and women. If a 

 woman does go so far astray as to forget herself, 

 the result is not only a divorce, expensive suits 

 at law, etc., but guns and pistols, murder and 

 suicides. Read the daily papers and see if you 

 do not find in ami one of them an account of some 

 awful tragedy right along this line. If the hus- 

 band is the guilty one. the wife and mother must 

 meekly bear it; but when we turn it around the 

 other way it is a different thing. When the Holy 

 Spirit held a looking-glass before my eyes and 

 said, "Thou art the man," no wonder I should 

 fear and tremble. ^, ' , j 



My good friend, Loretta Joy. of the Cleveland 

 Plain Dealer, writes recently as below : 



"And this hate and scorn were lashed over the 

 quivering shoulders of the wife who now siys: 



" 'I still love him. I was taught and T have 

 alwavs believed that love should mean putting 

 the happiness of *ie beloved before the happi- 

 ness of self. T feel it my duty to give him up to 

 this new happiness that he can find. But what 

 of the children? Have I any right to sacrifice 



then!?' , , . ., • -ii • 



"Of course this 'resigned, loving-wife spirit is 

 a beautiful thing I But somehow it maddens me I 

 It is so grosslv unfair to the whole institution of 

 marriage and the family. Its possibilities are too 

 revolting. A wife does not act for herself and her 

 one family alone. Her decision pounds in one nail 

 or takes one nail away from the whole social or- 

 ganism. Just as women have themselves made 

 the 'double standard' by excusing men for weak- 

 nesses thev condemn in each other, .iust so would 

 these maudlin, too-loviner wives imperil the whole 

 status of marriage and the family by yieldinir real 

 richts real values, to this tawdry, sham, tinsel 

 'fortv-fivp feeling ' >-hi''h. after all. means no^more 

 to the man than mf'asles to his youngsters." 



