The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-02

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 ning or working beyond regular speed snah be fned snillings ard sixpenca
 for the first offense. sniliings tor the second. 10 shilling TOT the third and if | still persists shah be dealt with as the
 committee think proper.
 There are secret societies in our col 1 leges that have letters of the Greek
 alphabet for their nomenclature. and their members are at the very front
 rank in scholarship and irreproachable
 in morals. while there are others the
 scene of carousal, and they gamble,
 and theiy drink, and they graduate
 knowing hundred times more about
 sin than they do of geometry and
 Sophocles. In other words. secret so- cieties. like individuals, gre good or
 bad. are the means of moral health or
 of temporal and eternal damnation. All good people recognize the vice of
 slandering an individual. put many do not see the sin of slandering an or
 ganization. There are old ecret socle-
 ties in this and other countries, some
 of them centuries old. which have been
 widely denounced as immoral and
 damaging in their influence, yet have
 hundreds of personal friends who be- long to them - friends who are conse-
 crated to God, pillars in the church.
 faithful in all relations of life. exam | pies of virtue and piety. They are the
 kind of friends whom T would have for | my executors at the time of decease, | and they are the men whom I would
 have carry me out to the last sleep
 when I am dead. You cannot make me believe that they would belong to
 bad institutions. They are the men who would stamp on anything iniqui-
 tous and I would certainly rather take l in n cieties than the testimony of those who having been sworn in as members, by their assault upon them confess them | selves perjurers.
 l One of these secret societies gave | for the relief of the sick in 1S13 in this country $1,490.274. Some of these societies have poured very heaven of sunshine and benediction into the | home of suffering. Several of them are founded on fidelity to good citizen ship and the Bible. have never taken one of their degrees. They might give me the grip a thousand times and l would not recognize it. 1 am ignorant of their passwords and I must judge entirely from the outside. But Christ has given us a rule by which we may judge not only all individuals, but all societies. secret and open. By their fruits ye shall know them" Bad so- cieties make bad men. Good societies make good men. A bad man will not stay in good society. A good man will | not stay in a bad society. Then try all secret societies by two or three rules.
 Influence on Home Life.
 Test the first: Their influence on home, if you have a 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 enterprises of reform and art and lit- erature and beneticence 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 becomes jealous of her husbands attention 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 con- vocation. She systematically decoyed him away until now he attends no church. waits upon no charitable in- stitution and is on a rapid way to de- struction. his 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 great many names of men who are guilty of this sacrilege. They are as genial as angels at the society room and as ugly as sin at home. They are generous on all subjects of wine sup pers. yachts and fast horses, but they are stingy about the wives dresses and the childrens shoes. That man has made that which might be healthful influence a 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. 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 man has joined certain kind and tell me nothing more about him for ten years. and I will write his history if he be still alive. The man is a wine guzzler his wife broken hearted or prematurely old. his fortune gone and his home mere name in the directory.
 Here are six secular nights in the week. What shall I do with them?" saws the father and the husband. I will give four of these nights to the improvement and entertainment of my family. either at home or in good neighborhood. I will devote one to charitable institutions. I will devote one to my lodge" I congratulate you. Here is a man who says: "Out of the six secular nights of the week I will devote five to lodges and clubs and as- socia tions and one to the home. which night I will spend in scowling like a March souall wishing was out spending it as I have spent the other i've" That mans obituary is written. Not one out of ten thousand that 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 he first rate prey for erysipelas and rheumatism of the heart.
 Evils of Bad Associations.
 The doctor coming in will at a glance see 1t is not only present disease he must fight but years of fast living. The clergvman, for the sake of the feelings of the family. on the funeral day. will only talk in religious gene ralities. The men who got his yacht