St. Landry democrat., 1885-05-16

would be but small part of the multitude
sacrificed without the contract
THREE TESTS.
If God will help me, will lay down
three principles by which you may judge
whether the club where you are a member
or the club to which you have been invited
is legitimate or an Legitimate Club
house.
First of all, want you to test the club
by its influences on home, if you have a
home have been told by a prominent
gentleman in club life that three-fourths
of the members of the great clubs of these
cities are married men. That wife soon
loses her influence over her husband who
nervously and foolishly looks upon all
evening absence as an assault on do
mesticity. How are the great enterprises
of art and literature and benef1cence and
public veal to be carried on if every man
is to have his world bounded on one side
by his front door step and on the other by
his back window, knowing nothing higher
than his own attic or nothing lower than
his own cellar? That wife who becomes
jealous of her husbands attention to art
or literature, or religion, or charity, is
breaking her own scepter of conjugal pow
err. know in this church an instance
where wife thought that her husband
was giving too many nights to Christian
service, to charitable service, to prayer
meetings and to religious convoca-
ton. She Systematically decoyed him
away, until now he attends neither
this nor any other church, and
is on rapid way to destruction
his morals gone, his money gone, and, I
fear, his soul gone. Let any Christian wife
rejoice when her husband consecrates
evenings to the service of God, or to char
ity, or to art, or to any thing elevated; but
let not men sacrifice home life to club life.
have the rolls of the members of a great
many of the prominent clubs of these
cities, and I can point out to you a great
many names of men who are guilty of this
sacrilege. They are as genial as angels at
the Clubhouse and as ugly as sin at home.
They are generous on all subjects of wine
suppers, yachts and fast horses, but they
are stingy about the wife's dress and the
childrens shoes. That man has made that
which might be healthful recreation a
usurper of his affections, and he has mar
ried it, and he is guilty of moral bigamy.
Under this process the wife, whatever her
features, becomes uninteresting and home
ly. He becomes critical of her, does not
like her dress, does not like the way she
arranges her hair, is amazed that he ever
was so unromantic as to offer her hand and
heart. She is always wanting money,
money, money, when she ought to be dis
cussing Dexter and Derby Day, and En-
glish drags with six horses, all answering
the pull of one ribbon"
I tell you there are thousands of houses
in Brooklyn and New York being dubbed
to death! There are Club-houses in these
cities where membership always involves
domestic shipwreck. Tell me that man
has Joined certain club; tell me nothing
more about him for ten years and will
write his history if he be still alive. The
man is wine guzzler, his wife broken
hearted or prematurely old, his fortune
gone or reduced, and his home a mere
name in the directory. Here are six secu-
lar nights in the week. "What shall do
with them?" says the father and the
husband. II will give four of those
nights to the improvement and entertain
ment of my family either at home or in
good neighborhood; will devote one to
charitable institutions; I will devote one
to the club" / congratulate you. Here is
man who says: " ]. will make different |
division of the six nights. will take three |
for the club and three for other purposes"
tremble. Here is man who says: tout |
of the six secular nights of the week will |
devote five to the Club-hous and one to
the home, which night | will spend in |!
scowling like March squat, wishing |
was out spending it as I had spent the |
other five." That mans obituary is writ |
ten. Not one out of ten thousand that |
ever gets so far on the wrong road ever |
stops. Gradually his health will fail |
through late hours and through too much |
stimu1ants. He will be frst-rate prey for |
erysipelas and rhumatism of the heart.
The doctor coming in will at glance see
it is not only present disease he must fight, |
but years of fast living. The clergyman,
for the sake of the feelings of the family |
on the funeral day, will only talk in relig- |
ious generalities. The men who got his |
yacht in the eternal rapids will not be at |
the obsequies. They will have pressing |
engagements that day. They will send |
flowers to the coffin and send their wives |
to utter words of sympathy, but they will |
have engagements elsewhere. They never
come. Bring me mallet and chise1 and |
will cut on the tombstone that mans cpl |
taph: eBlessed are the dead who die in |
the Lord" mo-" you isay, 'that would |
not be appropriate" "Let me die the
death of the righteous, and let my last end |
be like his.' "No," you say, ''that would |
not be appropriate" Then give me the
mallet and chisel, and will cut an honest
epitaph: "Here lies the victim of dis
sipating Club house." think that damage
is often done by the scions of some aristo-
i. IL. 1