The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-01-12


What shall be the principle9 II God
will help me, 1 will lay down three
principles to which you have been in
vited.
First of all want you to test the club
by its influences on home, if you have
a home. have been told by promi-
nent gentleman IL club life that three
fourths of the members of the great
clubs of these cities are married men.
The wife soon loses her influence over
her husband who nervously and fool
ishly looks upon all evening absence as
an assault on domesticity. How are
the great enterprises of art and liter
ature and benifcence 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 side by his back
window, knowing nothing higher than
his own attic, or nothing lower than
his own cellar? That wife who be-
comes Jealous of her husbands atten-
ton to art, or literature, or religion,
or charity is breSking her own scepter
of conjugal power. l know an instance
where wife thought her husband
was giving too many nights to Chris
tian service, to charitable service, to
prayer meetings, and to religious con-
vocation. She Systematically decoyed
him away until he attends no church,
and is on rapid way to destruction,
his morals gone, his money gone, and,
| fear, his soul gone. Let any Chris
tian wife rejoice when her husband
consecrates evenings to the service OF
cd, or to charity, or to art, or to any
, thing elevated; but let no man sacri-
flee home life to club life. l can point
out to you great many names OF men
who are guilty of this sacri-
lege. They are as genial as an
gels at the club house, and as
ugly as sin at home. They are gen
erous on all subjects of wine suppers,
Yachts and fast horses, but they are
stingy about the wife's dress and the
children's shoes. That man has made
that which might be healthful re-
creation an usurper of his affections,
and he has married it, and he is guilty
of moral bigamy, Under this process,
the wife, whatever her features, be-
comes uninteresting and homely.
1 tell you, there are thousands of
houses in the cities being dubbed to
death! There are club houses 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
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, ano
his home mere name in directory
Here are six secular nights in the
week: "What shall do with them?'
saws the father and the husband. 81
will give four of those nights to the
improvement and entertainment of my
family, either at home or in goo(
, neighborhood; 1 will devote one tt
| charitable institutions; l will devote
one to the club" l congratulate you
| Here is man who says: II vii
: make a different division of tn
, six nights. / will take three for tn
' club and three for other purposes"
: tremble, Here is a man who says
4 ''Out of the six secular nights of tn
r week l will devote five to the clu
S house and one to the home, which nigh
f | will spend in scowling like Marc
I, squall, wishing l was out spending
as had spent the other FIVE" Tha
= mans obituary is written. Not one ou
l of ten thousand that ever gets so far o
S the wrong road ever stops Gradual
e his health will fail, through late hour
S and through too much stimulus. II
j will be first-rate prey for erysipela
t and rheumatism of the heart Th
l. doctor coming in will at glance see
}, is not only present disease he mus
}, fight, but years of fast living. Th
j clergyman, for the sake of the feeling
e of the family, on the funeral day wi
g only talk in religious generalitie
Il The men who got his yacht in tn
S eternal rapids will not be at the obs,
d quies. They will have pressing ell
: gagements that day. They will sen
v flowers to the coffin-lid, and send thei
n wives to utter words of sympathy, bu
e they will have engagements elsewher
p They never come.
If Bring me mallet and chisel, and
n will cut on the tombstone that man
II epitaph. BLESSED are the dead WI
}, die in the Lord" No" you say, 9TH;
l. would not be appropriate Let me di
IS the death of the righteous, and let N
e last end be like His" mo" you sa
'e "that would not be appropriate" The
% give me the mallet and chisel, and l wi
1T cut an honest epitaph: Here lies tt
h victim of dissipating club house"
4 think that damage is often done
lie by the scions of some aristocrat
r family, who belong to one of the
t, dissipating club houses. Poop
y coming up from humber class
ID feel it an honor to belong to Il
er same club, forgetting the fact tn
n many of the sons and grandsons
lie the large commercial establishments
lie the last generation are now, as to min
,p imbecile; as to body, diseased; as
re morals, rotten. They would have G
s through their property long ago if tn
lie had had full possession of it; but t
IL willy ancestors, who earned the mon
~ by hard knocks, foresaw how it was
n be- and they tied up everything in Il
n will. Now, there is nothing of tn
of unworthy descendant but his graz
Id sathers name and res asst beef rotundit
a And yet how many roeamers there a
at which feel honored 20 lash fast til
ty worm-eaten tug, though it drags the
is straight into the breakers.