Connecticut western news., 1901-08-01

nvernocd. Fad it not been for t.Ie secret labor organizations in this coun- try monopoly would long ago have uu- der it's ponderous wheels ground the laboring classes into an intolerable servitude The men who want the V hole earth to themselves would have got it before this had 1t not been for the banding together of great secret organizations. And, while we deplore many things that have been done by them, their existence is q necessity and their legitimate sphere distinctly point ed cut by the providence of God. Such organizations are trying to dismiss from their association all members who are in favor of anarchy and social chaos. They will gradually cease any thing like tyranny over their members and will forbid violent interference with any mans work, whether he be- longs to their union or Is outside of 1t, and will declare their disgust with any such rule as that passed in England by the Manchester Bricklayers' associa- ton, which says any man found run ming or working beyond regular speed shall be fined shillings and sixpence fer the first offense, 5 shillings for the second. 10 shiilinGs for the third and if still persisting shall be dealt with as the committee thinks proper.
 Relief of the Sick.
 There are secret societies in our col leges that have letters of the Greek al- phabet for their nomenclature, and their members are at the very front in scholarship and irreproachable in nor als. while there are others the scene of carousal. and they gamble, and they drink. and they graduate knowing a hundred times more about sin than they do of geometry and SophocleS. In other words. secret societies, like indi- viduals, are good or bad, are the means of moral health or of temporal and eternal damnation. All good people recognize the vice of siandering an in- dividual, but many do not see the sin of slandering an organization. There are old secret societies in this and oth- CT countries, some of them centuries old. which have been widely denounced as immoral and damaging in their in- huence, yet l have hundreds of person al friends who belong to them, friends who are consecrated to God, pillars In the church, faithful in all relations of life, examples of virtue and piety. They are the kind of friends whom 1 would have for my executors at the time of decease. and they are the men whom l would have carry me out to the last sleep when I am dead. You cannot make me believe that they would be- long 10 bad institutions. They are the men who would stamp on anything in- iGuitous, and I would certainly rather take their testimony in regard to such societies than the testimony of those who, having been sworn in as mem bers, by their assault upon them con- fcss themselves perjurers.
 One of these secret societies gave for the relief of the sick in 1873 in this country S1,490.2T4. Some of these so- cietics have poured a very heaven of sunshine and benediction into the home of suffering. Several of them are founded on fidelity to good citizenship and the Bible. have meyer taken one of their degrees. They might give me the grip thousand times and I would not recognize 1t. l am ignorant of their passwords. and I must judge en- tirely from the outside. But Christ has given us 2 rule by which we may judge not only all individuals, but all societies. secret and open. By their fruits ye shall know them" Bad soci- cities make bad men. Good societies make good men. A bad man will not stay in a bad society. Then try all se- cret societies by two or three rules.
 In Humanity's Service.
 Test the first: Their influence on home. if you have home. That wife soon loses her influence over her hus- band who nervously and foolishly looks upon all evening absence as an assault on domesticity. How are the great en- terprises of reform and art and litera- ture and beneficence and public veal to be carried on if every man is to have his world bounded on one side by his front doorstep and on the other side by his back window, knowing nothing higher than his own attic or lower than his own cellar? That wife who be- comes jealous of her husbands atten- tion to art or literature or religion or charity is breaking her own scepter of conjugal power. I know an instance where a wife thought that her husband was giving too many nights to Chris tian service. to charitable service, to prayer meetings and to religious convo- cation. Sle systematically decoyed him away until now he attends no church. waits upon no charitable insti- tuition and is on a rapid way to destruc- ton, bis morals gone, his money gone and fear. his soul gone.
 Let any Christian wife rejoice when her husband consecrates evenings to the service of humanity and of God or anything elevating, but let no man sacrifice home life to secret society life. as many do. l can point out to you a great many names of men who are guilty of this sacrileye. They are as genial as angels at the society rooms and as ugly as sin at home. They are generous on all subjects of wine SUD- pers, yachts and fast horses, but they are stingy about the wives dresses and the children's shoes. That man has made that which might be a l,ealtbful influence a usurper of his affections, and he has married 1t, and he 6 guilty of moral bigamy. Under this process tue wife, whatever her features, be- comes uninteresting and homely. He becomes critical of her, does not like the 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. There are secret so- cieties where membership always in- wolves domestic shipwreck. Tell me that n man has joined a certain kind aud tell me nothing more about him for ten years, and I will write his his tory if be be still alive. The man is a wine guEzler, his wife broken hearted or prematurely old, his fortune gone and his home a mere name in the di- rectory.