The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-18

AMI English drags with six horses, all
answering the pull on one ribbon"
CLUBBED TO DEATH.
I tell you there are thousands OF
houses in the cities being dubbed to
death. There are clubhouses where
membership always involves domestic
shipwreck. Tell me that a man has
Joined a certain club, tell me nothing
more about him for ten years, and l
will write his history IL he be still
alive. The man Is a wine guZzler, his
wife broken hearted or prematurely
old, his fortune gone or reduced and
his home g, mere name in a directory.
Here are six secular nights in the week
What shall. I do with them?" says the
father and the husband. II Will give
four of those nights to the improve
ment and entertainment Of my family
at home or in good neigborhood. / will
devote one to charitable Institutions
I will devote one to the club" I con-
graduate you. Here is a different di-
vision OF the six nights. / will take
three for the club and three for other
purposes" / tremble. Here is a man
who says, "Out Of the six secular
nights OF the week I will devote five
to the clubhouse and one to the home,
which night I will spend in scowling
like a March sQuall, wishing I was out
spending it as I had spent the other
five" That mans obituary is written.
Not one out Of 10000 hat ever gets
so far on the wroCg road eyer stops.
Gradually his health will fail through
late hours and through too much slim
illus. He will be first rate prey for
erysipelas and rheumatism of the
heart. The doctor, coming in, will at
a glance see it is not only present dis
ease he must fight, but years of fast
living. The clergyman, for the sake OF
the feelings of the family, on the flu
neral day will only talk in religious
generalities. Then men who got his
yacht in the eternal rapids will not be
at the obsequies. They will have pres
sing engagements that day. They will
send flowers to the coffin lid and send
their wives to utter words of sympa-
thy, but they will have engagements
elsewhere. They never come. Bring
me mallet and chisel and I will cut
on the tombstone that mans epitaph,
Blessed are the dead who die in the
| Lord" mo-" you say, "that would not
be appropriated" Let me die the death
| of the righteous, and let my last end
be like his" NO." you say, "that
would not be appropriated" Then give
me the mallet n the chisel n I will
| cut an honest epitaph, Here lies the
victim Of a dissipating clubhouse"
I think that damage is often done by
the scions of some aristocratic family
who belong to one of those dissapating
| clubhouses. People coming UP from
! humber classes feel it ar honor to be-
long to the same club, forgetting the
fact that many of the SON and grand
sons of the last generation are now, as
| to mind, imbecile; as to body, diseased;
| as to morals, rotten. They would have
got through their property long ago
if they had had full possession Of it,
but the willy ancestors, who earned the
money by hard knocks, foresaW how it
was to be, and they tied up everything
in the will. Now, there is nothing of
that unworthy descendant but his
F, Srandfather's name and roast beef ro-
! humidity. And yet how many steamers
there are which feel honored to lash
fast that worm eaten tug, though it
d1ags them straight into the breakers.
Another test by which you can find
whether your club is legitimate or il
legitinaate-the effect it has on your
| secular occupation. I can understand
how through such an institution a man
can each commercial successes. I
| know some men have formed their best
business relations through such a chan
| mel. If the club has advantaged you
in an honorable calling, it is a legiti-
mate club. But has your credit failed?
Are bargain makers more cautious how
they trust you with a bill of goods?
Have the men whose names were down
in the commercial agency A 1 before
they entered the club been going down
ever since in commercial standing?
Then look out! You and I every day
know of commercial establishments
going to run in through the social eX-
cesses of one or two members, their
fortunes beaten to death with ball
players bat, or cut amidships by the
front Prov Of the regatta, or going
dow under the swift hoofs of the fast
horses, or drowned in large rotations
of cognac and monOngahela. Their
clubhouse was the Loeb Earn" Their
business house was the willie du
Havre." They struck, and the ''Ville
du Iiavre" ven under.
! A TEST OF MERIT.
A third test by which you may know
whether the club to which you belong,
or the club to whose membership o
are invited, is a legitimate club or an
illegitimate club is this: What. is its
effect on your sense of moral and re-
ligious obligation? Now, if I should
take the names of all the people in any
audience and put them on a roll and
then I should lay that roll bac of
h organ and 100 years from now
some one should take that roll and
| call it from A ito z, there would not
n of you answer. I say that any as
| ISOLATION that makes me forget that
| fact is a bad association. Now to
| Of the cities there are w routes, and
you can take the Pennsylvania rail-
| road or the Baltimore and Ohio; but
| suppose that I hear that ON one route
\ the track is torn up, and the bridges
are tori down, and the switches are
unlocked? 1t will net take me a great
| while to decide which road to take.
| Now, here are two roads into the flu
ture, the Christian and the un-Chris-
| tian, the safe and the unsafe. An in
%stftution or any association that con-
fuses my idea in regard to that fact
[ is a bad institution and a bad associa-
! tion. 1 had rayer before I Joined
| the CLUB. Did / have them after? I
| attended the house of God before 1
| Connected myself with the club. Since
that union with the club dc I absent
myself from religious influences?