Connecticut western news., 1901-08-01

1 III. w-.u ssuu ,-~ir ,,.veS ia I<>er words of sympathy. but they will have en- | agreements elsewhere. They never come. | Bring me nlallet and chisel, and will | ut that mans epitaph. Blessed are | the dead who die In the LordT' No you say; that would not be appropri- | ate" 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 the chisel. and I will cut an honest epitaph, Here lies the vic tim of dissipating associations"
 Test of Secret Societies.
 | Another test by which you can find | whether your secret society Is right or | wrong is the effect 1t has on your secular occupation. 1 can understand how through such an institution man | can reach commercial success. l know | some men have formed their best busi- ness relations through such channel. | If the secret society has advantaged | YOU in an honora ble calling 1t Is good | one. But has your credit failed? Are | bargain makers now more anxious how | they trust you with bale of goods? | Have the men whose names were down | in the commercial agency Al before | they entered the society been going down since in commercial standing? | Then look out. You and I every day know of commercial establishments go- | ing to ruin through the social excesses of one or two members, their fortune beaten to death with ball players bat or cut amidships with the front prov | of the regatta or going down under the | swift hoofs of the fast horses or drown ed in the large potations of cognac or Monongahela. That secret society was | the Loch Earn. Their business was the Vile de Havre. They struck, and | the Vile de Havre went under!
 The third test by which you may know whether the society to which you belong is good or bad is this: What is its effect on your sense of moral and religious obligation? Now, if I should take the names of all the people in this audience and put them on a roll, and then should lay that roll back of this organ, and a hundred years from now some one should take that roll and call it from A to z, there would not one of you answer. l say that any society l that makes me forget that fact Is bad society.
 When l go to Chicago, I am some times perplexed at Buffalo, as I sup pose many travellers are, as to whether it is better to take the Lake Shore route or the Michigan Central. equally expeditions and equally safe, getting to their destination at the same time. But suppose that I hear that on one route the track is torn up. the bridges are down and the switches are un- locked. It will not take me a great while to decide which road to take. Now here are two roads in the future the Christian and the un-Christian, the safe and the unsafe. Any institution or any association that confuses my ideas in regard to that fact Is bad in- stitution and bad association. I had | prayers before I joined that society. Did have them afterward? I attend ed the house of God before I connected myself with that union. Do I absent myself from religious infuences?
 saIvation's Cable.
 Which would you rather have In your hand when you come to die-a pack of cards or Bible? Which would you rather have pressed to your lips in the closing moment-the cup of Belshazza- rean wassail or the clialice of Christian communion? Whom would you rather have for your pallbearers- elders of Christian church or the compan- Ions whose conversation was full of slang and innuendo? Whom would you rather have for your eternal com. panions-those men who spend their evenings betting. gambling, swearing, carousing and telling vile stories ar your little child, that bright girl whom the Lord took? Oh, you would not have been away so much nights, would you. If you had known she was going | away so soon? Dear me, your house has never been the same place sin ce Tour wife has never frightened up: she has never got over 1t; she nerer will get over 1t. How long the even Ings are with no one to put to bed and no one to whom to tell the beautiful Bible stories! What a pity 1t Is that you cannot spend more evenings at
 
 sorrow! You can never drown that grief in the wine cup. You can never break away from the little arms that used to be flung around your neck when she used to say. Papa, do stay with me tonight-do stay with me to- nightw You will never be able to wipe away from your lips the dying kiss of your little girl. The fascination of . bad secret society Is so great that some times man has turned his back on his home when his child was dying of scar let fever. He went away. Before he got back at midnight the eyes had been closed, the undertaken had done his work. and the wife, worn out with three weeks watching, lay unconscious In the next room. Then the returned father comes up stairs, and he sees tbe cradle gone, and he says, What is the matterT On the Judgment day he will find out what was the matter.
 Oh, man astray, God help you! I am going to make a very stout rope. You know that sometimes ropemaker will take very small threads and wind them together until after awhile they be- i come ship cable. And I am going to take some very small, delicate threads and wind them together until they make very stout rope. I will take all the memories of the marriage day thread of laughter, thread of light, thread of music, a thread of ban- quoting, thread of congratulations and twist them together, and have one strand. Then take a thread of the hour of the first advent In your house, thread of the darkness that preceded, and thread of the light that followed. and thread of the beautiful scarf that little child used to wear when she bounded out at eventide to greet you, and then a thread of the beautiful dress in which you laid her away for the resurrection, and then l