The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-02-14


idea has had too much to do with the
growth of modern club life. Young
men who cannot afford to make homes
have banded themselves together into
clubs. There are doubtless many re-
spectacle clubs, but there are many
more that give young men a start on
the downward road. The club. however
respectable it may be, is not one of
Gods institutions, and can never Tor
any man take the place of the home
that God instituted.
Rev. DIR. Pierson says: Investigation
shows that in these days society, espe-
cially among the higher ranks, is actual
~ tending toward celibacy and child
lessness. The drift of the day is d.
rectly away from all scripture moor
ings. While the Bible teaches us that
homes, wives and children are all to be
counted among Gods best gifts, modern
society fatty gives the lie to these state
ments. 1t has become proverbial that
the French language has no equivalent
for home and that French society, IN
its rottenness, is fast losing the thing
meant by home; that in prevalence OF a
selfishness and self-indulgence that
prompt to something wrose than cell
bacy, the names of wife and child are
fast becoming unfamiliar and diStaste-
full. Modern extravaganza and licen-
tiousneSS encourage this Partisan notion
and practice; and, as result, in our
large cities especially, the facts are
alarming. In Chicago, for instance
there are 5000 young men who either
feel unable or disinclined to support
wife and family; and thus, in the most
temptable period of life, many of them
away from home and amid strangers
become an easy prey to the subtlest
vices, and initiate the licentious customs
of the famous French metropolis, to
their own ruin and social corruption.
He continues: I'm the modern club
house you may find a similar sign of a
corrupt tendency of modern societies.
What is a club house? A very innocent
thing in itself, and even a convent
ence; but it fosters a bad practical tend
ency Originally it was an establish
Elent for furnishing means and place
of rendezvous to a select number of men,
called loosely a club: additional mem
bers to be admitted by ballot, and each
to pay an annual tax for the support
of the house, and receive meals and re-
SO far as these original club houses
were successful, they tended to make
home unnecessary by supplying com
forts and conveniences without cares
And so the original purpose gradually
grew in comprehensiveness. Men who
could afford but a humble home with
their own families could, in combina-
ton with others, secure a sumptuous
J. - Af u l1h
life. And so, by and by, the club
houses became not the simple places
for an occasional meal, but the habitual
home of single men, who ought to have
had a home of their own, or of married
men who ought to have been in their
own home cultivating the society OF
their wives and children; until to-day
the more modern club houses of London
and New York answer to the charac-
ter Of palatial structures, eclipsing IN
external appearance, as well as in inter
nal spaciousness, the town mansions Of
the nobility or aristocracy." Such is
one of the drifts of modern life, drift
away from the home which God estab-
lished for mans good. Now, many
women are entirely guiltless of this state
of things, while others by their extrav-
agant views of life and their unwilling
ness to be ''helpmeet" to any, are help
ing it on.
Rev DIR. Cuyler we'll says: 1.-THE hu-
man race began with a partnership, and
has been perpetuated ever since by the
same linking of hearts and lives. God
saw that it was not good for man to
be alone That is the happy and the
heaven made marriage when they two"
are so thoroughly welded for life's
purest purpose and highest, hottest aims.
that they are a complete unit; | stand
for old-fash ioned through and through
love matches, even though the only out
fit be a pewter spoon and a wooden
trencher They two will climb the hard
hill the easier for each others loving
lift up the steep places. Wise wedlock
has saved millions of young men from
the sirens of sensualists. Please your
selves and please God, and you will be
sure to please me- was old Philip Hen
rvs happy answer to the young man
who sued for his daughters hand"
Let no one think we would urge young
women, or men either, to marry in haste
regardless of any circumstance If we
would not have a woman take much
time to measure the income of the man
she loved, we would have her take con-
siderable time to measure his heart, his
character and his habits. God did not
come into Eden and find Adam going
astray and say, Il will make him
woman to reform him." Woman was
made 10 stand by man who was her
equal, not by one who was beneath her,
whom she was to lift up. Women have
been married to men of evil habits, who
have helped them to reform. But 1t
is altogether too difficult and too uncer-
tain an undertaking to be recommend
ed. Never marry a man to reform him
is pretty good advice for every young
woman. Do not marry man if he is in
the habit of drinking, whether it be
much or little, while the thought that
he will never drink to excess while you
are in his home lavishing your love upon
him, or with the thought that you will
be able to persuade him to give up the
habit altogether. Give him two long
years Of probation, and then if he will
not quit an evil habit for your sake you
had better remain single all your days
than to be tied to him. If the man who
offers his hand to you has not hand
as clean as yours, has not heart as
warm as yours, has not a spirit of self
sacrifice as just as yours, never clasp
that hand in marriage.
But 1 fear some of you may be think
ing, in the course of this sermon, that
this woman whom God made to be
helpsneet' for man soon got him into
trouble and therefore this point must
be touched. II is Bible truth that 1t