Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-08-02


ship always involves domestic shipwreck,
Tell me that man has joined q certain
kind and tell me nothing more about him
for ten years, and 1 will write his history
if he be still alive. The man is wine
guzzler, his wife broken hearted or pre-
maturely old, his fortune gone and his
nome mere name in the directory.
Here are six secular nights in the week.
''What shall I do with Them" says the
father and the husband. II viii give four
of these nights to the improvement and
home or in good neighborhood. I will de-
vote one to charitable institutions. will
devote one to my lodge" I congratulate
you. Here is a man who says. "Out of the
six secular nights of the week / will de.
vote five to lodges and clubs and associa.
tions and one to the home, which night l
will spend in scowling like March s1uall,
wishing, l was out snendlng it as l have
spent the other FIVE" That mans obitu-
ever get so far on the wrong road ever
stops. Gradually his health will fail
through late hours, and through too much
stimulants he will be frst-rate prey for
erysipelas and rheumatism of the Eecrt
The doctor coming in will at glance see
it is not only present disease he must
fight, but years of fast living: The cler-
gyman for the sake of the feelings of the
family on the funeral day will only talk
in religious. generalitles: The mel VINO
got his yacht in the eternal rapids will
not be at the obsequies They have press
ing engagements that day. They will send
flowers to the coffin, will send their wives
to utter words of sympathy. but they will
have engagements elsewhere. They never
come.
Another test by which you can find
whether your secret society is right or
wrong is the effect it has on your secular
occupation. I can understand how through
such an institution man can reach com
mercial success. | know some men have
formed their best business relations
through such channel. If the secret So
ciety has advantaged you in an honorable
calling it is a 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 | every day know of CONNER
cial establishments going to ruin through
the social excuses of one or two mem
bers, their. fortune beaten to death with
ball players bat or cut amidships with the
under the swift hoofs of the fast horses
or drowned in the large potations of cog
nae Monongahela. The secret society was
the Loeb 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 obi
cation? Now, if should take the names
of all the people in this audience and put
roll back of this organ, and hundred
years from now some one should take that
roll and call it from A to D, there would
not one of you answer. l say that any So
ciety that makes me forget that fact is
bad society.
Which would you rather have in your
hand when you come to de-a pack of
cards or Bible? Which would you
rather have pressed to your lips in the
closing moment-the cup of Belshazzarean
wassail or the chalice of Christian COM
for your pallbearers-the elders of a
Christian church or the companions whose
conversation was full of slang and inuen-
do? Whom would you rather have for
your eternal companions-those men who
spend their evenings betting, gambling,
swearing. carousing and telling vile stories
or 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
has never frightened up; she has never
got over 1T; she never will get over it.
How long the evenings are with no one to
put to bed and no one to whom to tell
the beautiful Bible stories What a pity
it is that you cannot spend more even
ings at home in trying to help her bear
that sorrow! You can never drown that
grief. in the wine cup. You can never
break away from the little arms that
she used to say, Papa, do stay with me
to-night-do stay with me tonight 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 sometimes man has turned
his back on his home when his child was
dying of scarlet 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 the
IiuuiC eOuS. anu TIC Says. VIVA Is the
.matter~ On the Judgment day he will
find out what was the matter.
/ Oh, man astray, God help you! I am
going to make very stout rope You
know that sometimes a ropemaker will
take very small threads and wind them to.
gether until after awhile they become a
ship cable. And am going to take some
very small. delicate threads and wind
them together until they make a very
stout rope. / will take all the memories
of the marriage day-a thread of laughter,
a thread of light, thread of music, a
thread of banQueting, thread of congrat.
have one strand Then / take thread of
the hour of the first advent in your house,
thread of the. darkness that preceded,
uuSnd thread of the light that followed,
'!oGi i5'd ~ the beautiful scarf that
ana then l twist all these Tf1 brehscC bend.
getner and have another strand r., TO
lake thread of the scarlet roi thell
suffering Christ, and thread Of tIo %, OF q
ttss, n OF your. loved ones before" i the
s entoIe; ana string of the harp sersnbi He
third " asr, .nem al; an together, and have
strand is en nu IN you say, either
No; l will take these strands s' anJ World =,
TWIST them together, and one end "tIu o I WI
rope will fasten not to the cou, %, mat
n;l3, TOR it shall be removed; not to
P,llar OF the organ, for that will D erum NJ
r ro ,de tb ages as but wind it round and
and "b ba vine cross foss OF sympathizing Christ
to the cross / throw the other end &c rope Uo,.
for heavenl '0ui hie! Full
Politics in AuatraIIo