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. ■ .* ... * .M> IN TIME OF LEISURE. REV. DR. TALMAGE ON THE IN *LU ENCE OF THE CLUB. He Shows the Effect of Bad Clubs—The Tee* of Merit of a Olnb-The' Struttie Acalott Bril Habits and How to Con. qucr. [Copyright, 1898, Press Asao ■Washington, Jan. 9.—This discourse of Dr. Talmage will be helpful to those who want to find places with healthful and im proving surroundings and to avoid places deleterious. His text is II Samuel 11,14, “Let the young men now arise and play before us.” There are two armies encamped by the pool of Gibeon. The time hangs heavily on their hands. One army proposes a game of sword fencing. Nothing could be more healthful and Innocent. The other army accepts the challenge. Twelve men against 12 men, the sport opens. But something went adversely. Perhaps one of the swords men got an unlucky clip or In some way had his Ire aroused, and that which opened in sportfulness ended in violence, each one taking his contestant by the hair and then with the sword thrusting him in (he side, so that that which opened in innocent fun ended in the massacre of all the 24 sports men. Was there ever a better illustration of what was true then and is true now, that that which is innocent may be made destructive? At this season of the year the clubhpuses of our towns and cities are in full play. I have found out that there is a legitimate and an illegitimate use of the clubhouse. In the one case it may become a healthful recreation, like the contest of the 24 men in the text when they began their play; in the other case it becomes the massacre of body, mind and soul, as in the case of these contestants of the text when they had gone too far with their sport. All in telligent ages have had their gatherings for political social, artistic, literary pur poses—gatherings characterized by the blunt old Anglo-Saxon designation of “chib.” Famous Clubs. If you have read history, you know that there was a King’s Head club, a Ben Jonson club, a Brothers’ club, to which Swift and Bolingbroke belonged; a Liter ary club, which Burke and Goldsmith and Johnson and Boswell made immortal; a Jacobin club, a Benjamin Franklin Junto club—some of these to indicate justice, some to favor the arts, some to promote good manners, some to despoil the habits, some to destroy the soul. If one will write an honest history of the clubs of England, Ireland, Scotland, France and the United States for the last 100 years, ho will write the history of the world. The club was an institution bora on English soil, but it has thrived well in American atmosphere. .Who shall tell how many belong to that kind of club where men put purses togeth er and open bouse, apportioning the ex pense of caterer and servants and room, and having a sort of domestic establish ment—a style of clubhouse which in my opinion is far better than the ordinary hotel or boarding house? But my object now is to speak of clubhouses of a differ ent sort, such as the Cosmos or Chevy Chase or Lincoln club of this capital, or the Union Leagues of many cities, the United Service club of‘ London, the Lotos of New York, where journalists, drama tists, sculptors, painters and artists from all branches gather together to discuss newspapers, theaters and elaborate art, like the Americus, which camps out in summer time, dimpling the pool with its hook and arousing the forest with its stag hunt; like the Century club, which has its large group of venerable lawyers and poets; like the Army and Navy club, where those who engaged in Warlike service once on the land or the sea now come together to talk over the days of carnage; like the New York Yacht club, with its floating palaces of beauty upholstered with velvet and paneled with ebony, having all the advantages of electric bell, and of gaslight, and of king’s pantry, one pleasure boat costing |B,OOO, another $15,000, anoth er $30,000, another $65,000, the fleet of pleasure boats belonging to the club having cost over $2,000,000; like the American Jockey club, to which belong men who have a passionate fond ness for horses, fine horses, as had Job when, in the Scriptures, he gives us a sketch of that king of beasts, the arch of its neck, the nervousness of its foot, the majesty of its gait, the whirlwind of its power, crying out: “Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? The glory of his nos trils is terrible; he paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, he salth among the trumpets ha! ha! and he smell eth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting,” like the Travelers’ club, the Blossom club, the Palette club, the Commercial club, the Liberal club, the Stable Gang club, the Amateur Boat club, the gambling clubs, the wine clubs, the clubs of all sizes, the clubs of all morals, clubs as good as good can be and clubs as bad as bad can be, clubs innumerable. During the day they are comparatively lazy places. Here and there an aged man reading a newspaper, or an employee dusting a sofa, or a clerk writing up the accounts, but when the curtain of the night falls on the natural day then the curtain of the clubhouse hoists for the entertainment. Let us hasten up now the marble stairs. What an imperial hallway I See, here are par lors on the side, with the upholstery of the Kremlin and the Tuileries, and here are dining balls that challenge you to mention any luxury that they cannot afford, and here are galleries with sculpture and paintings and lithographs and drawings from the best of artists, Cropsey and Blerstadt and Church and Hart and Gifford—pictures for every mood, whether you are Impassioned or placid; shipwreck or sunlight over the sea, Sheridan’s ride, or the noonday party of the farmers under the trees, foaming deer pursued by the hounds in the Adirondacks or the sheep on the lawn. On this side there are read ing rooms where you find all newspapers and magazines. On that side there is a library, where you find all books, from hermeneutics to the fairy tale. Coming in and out there are gentlemen, some of whom stay ten minutes, others stay many hours. Some of these are from luxurious homes, and they have excused themselves for awhile from the domestic circle that they may. enjoy the larger sociability of the clubhouse. These are from dismember ed households, and they have a plain lodg ing somewhere, but they come to this club room to have their chief enjoyment. One blackball amid ten votes will defeat a taan’s becoming a member. For rowdy ism, for drunkenness, for gambling, for any kind of misdemeanor, a member is dropped out. Brilliant clubhouse from top to bottom. The chandeliers, the plate, the furniture, the companionship, the litera ture, the social prestige, a complete en chantment. But the “eveuing is passing on, and so we hasten through the hall and down the steps and into the street ang.from block to block untit we come to another style of clubhouse. Opening the door, we find the fumes of strong drink and tobacco some thing almost intolerable. These young men at this table, it is easy to understand what they are at from the flushed cheek, the intent look, the almost angry way of tossing the dice or of moving the “chips.” They are gambling. At another table are men who are telling vlle’stories. They are throe-fourths intoxicated, and between 12 and 1 o’clock they will go staggering, hooting, swearing, shouting on their way home. That is an only son. On him all klpdness, all care, all culture has been be stowed. Ho is paying his parents in this way for their kindness. That is a young married man who only a few months ago at the altar made promises of kindness and fidelity, every ono of which ho has broken. Walk through and see for your self. Here are all the implements of dissi pation and of quick death. As the hours of the night go away the conversation be comes imbecile and more debasing. Now it is time to shut up. Those who are able to stand will get out on the pavement and balance themselves against the lamppost or against the railings of the fence. The young man who is not able to stand will have a bed improvised for him in the club house, or two not quite so overcopne with liquor will conduct him to his father’s house, and they will ring the doorbell, and the door will open, and the two imbecile escorts will introduce into the hallway the ghastliest and most hellish spectacle that ever enters a front door—a drunken son. If the dissipating clubhouses of this coun try would make a contract with the inferno to provide it 10,000 men a year, and for 20 years, on the condition that no more should be asked of them, the clubhouses could afford to make that contract, for they would save homesteads, save fortunes, save bodies, minds and souls. The 10,000 men who would bo sacrificed by that con tract would be but a small part of the multitude sacrificed without But I make a vast differencewbetween clubs. I have belonged to four clubs—a theological club, a ball club and two liter ary clubs. I got from them physical re juvenation and moral health. What shall be the principle? If God will help me, I will lay down three principles by which you may judge whether the club where you are a member or the club to which you have been invited is a legitimate or an illegitimate clubhouse. First of all I want you to test the club by its influences on homo, if you have a home. I have been told by a prominent gentleman in club life that three-fourths of the members of the great clubs of these cities are married men. That wife soon loses her influence over her husband Who nervously and foolishly looks upon all evening absence as an assault on domes ticity. How arc the great enterprises of art and literature and beneficence and public weal to be carried on if every man is to have his world bounded on ono side by his front doorstep and on the other side by his back window, knowing noth ing higher thari his own attio or nothing lower than his own cellar? That wifo who becomes jealous of her husband’s at tention 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 Christian service, to charitable service, to prayer meetings and to religious convocation. She systematically decoyed him away un til now he attends no church and is on a rapid way to destruction, his morals gone, his money gone and, I fear, his soul gone. Let any Christian wife rejoice when her husband consecrates evenings to the serv ice of God, or to charity, or to art, or to anything elevated, but let not men sacri fice home life to club life. I can point out to you a great many names of men who are guilty of this sacrilege. They are as genial as angels at the clubhouse and as ugly as sin at home. They are generous 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 a healthful recreation 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, becomes uninteresting aifd homely. He becomes critical of her, does not like the dress, decs not like the way she arranges her hair, is amazed that he ever was so unromantic as to offer her hand and heart. She is always wanting money, money when she ought to be discussing Eclipses and Dexter and Derby day and English drags with six horses, all answering the pull of one “ribbon.” Clubbed to Death. I tell you there are thousands of houses in the cities being clubbed to death. There are clubhouses 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 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 «r reduced and his home a mere name in a directory. Here are six secular nights In the week. “What shall I do with them?” says the father and the husband. “I will give four of those nights to the improvement and entertainment of my family, either at home or in good neighborhood. I will devote one to chari table institutions. I will devote one to the club.” I congratulate you. Here is a man who says: “I will make a different division of the six nights. I will take three for the club and three for other pur poses.” I tremble. Here is a man who says, “Out of the six secular nights of the week I will devote five to the clubhouse and one to the home, which night I w ill spend in scowling like a March'squall, wishing I was out spending it as I had spent the other five. ” That man’s obitu ary is written. Not one out of 10,000 that ever gets so far on the wrong road ever stops. » Gradually his health will fail through late hours and..through too much stimulus. He will be first rate prey for erysipelas and rheumatism of the heart. The doctor, coming in, will at a glance see it is not only present disease he must fight, but years of fast living. The clergyman, for the sake of the feelings of the family, on the funeral day will only talk in reli gious generalities. Then men who got his yacht in the-eternal rapids will not be at the obsequies. They will have pressing engagements that day. They will send flowers to the coffin lid and send their wives to utter words of sympathy, but they Will have engagements elsewhere. They never come. Bring me mallet and chisel and I will cut on the tombstone that man’s epitaph, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” “No,” you say, “that would not be appropriate.” “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 victim of a dissipating clubhouse. ” 1 think that damage is often dona by the scions of some prlitoorat’o family who belong to ono of these dissipating club houses. People coming up ‘rom humbler classes feel it an honor to. belong to the same club, forgetting tho fa -t that many of tho sons and grandsons of the largo commercial establishments of the last gen eration arc now, as to mind, imbecile; as to body, diseased; as to morals, rotten. They would have got through their prop erty long ago if they had hod full posses sion of it, hut the wily ancestors, who earned the money by hard knocks, foresaw how it was to be, and they tied up every thing in tho wilt Now, there is nothing of. that unworthy descendant but bls grandfather’s name and roast boef ro tundity. And yet how many steamers there are which feel honored to lash fast that worm eaten tug, though it drags them straight into tho breakers. Another test by which you can find whether your club is legitimatoor illegiti mate—the effect it has on your secular oc cupation. I can understand how through such an institution a man can reach com mercial successes. I know some men have formed their best business relations through such a channel. If the club has advantaged you in an honorable calling, it is a legitimate club. But has your credit failed? Arc bargain makers more cautious how they trust you with a bill of goods? Have the men whose names were down in the commercial agency Al before they entered the club been going down ever since in commercial standing? Then lookout! You and I every day know of commercial establishments going to ruin through tho social excesses of one or two members, their fortunes beaten to death with ball players’ bat, or cut amidships by the front prow of tho regatta, or going down under the swift hoof: of the fast horses, or drowned in largo potations of cognac and monongahela. Their club house was the “Loch Earn. ” Their busi ness house was tho “Villo du Havre.” They struck, and the “Villo du Havre” went under. A Test of Merit. A third test by which you may know whether the club to which you belong, or tho club to whose membership you are in vited, is a legitimate club or an illegiti mate club is this: What is its effect on your sense of moral and religious obliga tion? Now, if I should take tho names of all tho people in any audience and put them on a roll and then I should lay that roll back of the organ and 100 years from now some one should take that roll and call it from A to Z, there would not one of you answer. I say that any association that makes me forget that fact is a bad association. Now to many of the cities th-ye are two routes, and you can take the Pennsylvania railroad or the Baltimore and Ohio; but suppose that I hear that on one route the track is torn up, and the bridges are tern down, and the switches are unlocked? It will not take me a great while to decide which road to take. Now, here are two roads into the future, the Christian and the un-Christian, the safe and the unsafe. An institution or any as sociation that confuses my idea in regard to that fact is a bad institution and a bad association. I had prayers before I joined the club. Did I have them after? I attend ed the house cf God before I connected myself with the club. Since that union with the club do I absent myself from re ligious influences? Which would you rather have in yoqr hand when you come to die, a pack of cards or a Bible? Which would you rather have pressed to your lips in the closing moment, the cup of Belshazzaroan wassail or the chalice of Christian com munion? Who would you rather have for your pallbearers, the elders of a Christian church or tho companions whose conver sation was full of slang and innuendo? Who would you rather have for your eter nal companions, those men who spend their evenings betting, gambling, swear ing, carousing and telling vile stories or your little child, that bright girl whom the Lord took? Oh, you would not have bepn 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 ulaco since. Your wife has never brightened up. She has not got over it; she never will get over it. How long the evenings are; with nb one to put to bed and no one to tell tfie beautiful Bible story I What a pity it la that you cannot spend more evenings at home in trying to help her bear that sorrow I You can never drown that grief in the wjno cup. You can never break away ffgjri the little arms that used to be flung around your neck when she used to say, “Papa, do stay home tonight—do stay home tonight.” You will never be able to wipe away from your lips the dying kiss of your little girl. The fascination of a dissipating club house is so great that sometimes a 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 undertaker had done his work, and the wife, worn out with three weeks’ watching, lay uncon scious in the next room. Then there is a rattling of the night key in the door, and the returned father comes up stairs and sees the empty cradle and the window up. He says, “What is the matter?” In God’s judgment day he will find out what was the matter. Oh, man astray, God help you! The influence which somo of the club houses are exerting is the more to be de plored because it takes down the very best men. Tho admission fee sifts out the penurious and leaves only tho best fellows. They are frank, they are generous, they are whole souled, they are talented. Oh, I begrudge the devil such a prize! After awhile the frank look will go out of the face and the features will be haggard, and when talking to you, instead of looking you In the eye, they will look down, and every morning the mother will kindly ask, “My son, what kept you out so late last night?” and he will make no answer, or he will say, “That’s my business." Then some time ho will come to the store or the bank cross and befogged, and he will neg lect some duty, and after awhile he will lose his place, and then with nothing to do he will come down at 10 o’clock in tho mprnlng to curse the servant because tho breakfast is cold. The lad who was a clerk in tho cellar has got to be chief clerk In the great commercial establishment; the young man who ran orrands for the bank has got to be cashier; thousands of the young men who were at the foot of the ladder have got to the top of the ladder, but here goes the victim of the dissipating clubhouse, with staggering step and blood shot eye and mud bespattered hat set side wise on a shock of greasy hair, bls cravat dashed with cigar ashes. Look at him! Pure hearted young man, look at him! The clubhouse did that. I know one such who went the whole round, and turned out of the higher clubhouses went into the lower clubhouses, and on down, until one night be leaped out of a third story win dow to end his wretchedness A Terrible Straggle- Let me say to fathers who arc becoming dissipated, your sons will follow you. You think yo xr son .does not know. Ho knows all about it. I have heard men who say, “I am profane, but never in the presence of mv children.”.. Your children know you swear. I have heard men say, “I drink, but never in the presence of my children.” Your children know you drink. I describe now what occurs 'in hundreds of households in this country. Tho tea hour has arrived. Tho family are seated at the tea table. ' Before the rest of tho family arise from the table the father shoves bock his chair, says ho has an en gagement, lights a cigar, goes out, cornea back after midnight, and that is the his tory of 865 nights of the year. Docs any man want to stultify himself by saying that that is healthy, that that la right, that that is honorable? Would your wife have married you with such prospects? Time will pass on, and the eon will be 16 or 17 years of ago, and you will be at the tea table, and ho will shove back and have an engagement, and he will light his cigar, and he will go out to the clubhouse, and you will hear nothing of him until you hear tho night key in the door after midnight. But bls .physical constitution Is not quite so strong as yours, and the liquor he drinks is more terrifically drug; ged t han that which you drink, and so he will catch up with you on the road to death, though you got such a long start of him, and so you will both go to boll to gether. The revolving Drummond light in front of a hotel, in front of a locomotive, may flash this way add flash that upon the mountains, upon tho ravines, upon the city, but I take the lamp of God’s eternal truth, and I flash It upon all the club houses of theso cities, so that no young man shall be deceived. By th&e teste try them, try them I Oh, leave the dissipat ing influences of the clubroom, if the in fluences of your clubroom are dissipating! Paid your money, have you? Better sac rifice that than your soul. Good fellows, are they? Under that process they will not remain such. Molluscs may be found 200 fathoms down beneath the Norwegian seas; Siberian stag get fat on the stinted growth of Altaian peaks; hedysarium grow dmld the desolation of Sahara; tufts of osier and birch grow on the hot lips of volcanic Sneehattan, but a pure heart and an honest life thrive In a dissipating club house—never! Tho way to conquer a wild beast is to keep your eye on him, but the way for you to conquer your temptations, my friend, is to turn your back on them and fly for your Ufa Oh, my heart ache! I* see men strug gling against evil habits, and they want help. I have knelt beside them, and I have heard them cry for help, and then wo have risen, and he has put one hand on my right shoulder and the other hand on my left shoulder and looked into my face with an infinity of earnestness which the judg ment day will have no power to make me forget, as he has cried out with his lips scorched in ruin, "God help me!” For such there is no help except in the Lord God Almighty. I art going to make a very stout rope. You know that some times a ropemaker will take very small threads and wind them together until after awhile they become ship cable. And lam going to take some very small, delicate threads and wind them together until they make a very stout rope, t will take all the memories of the marriage day, a thread at laughter, a th r °ad of light, a thead of music, aibread bf banqueting, a thread of congratulation, and I twist them together and I have one strand. Then I take a thread of the hour of the first ad vent in your house, h thread of the dark ness that preceded, and ’a thread of the light that followed, and? a thread of the beautiful scarf that little child used to wear when she bounded but ave¥entide to greet you, and then a thread of the beau tiful drtSs in which you laid her ayray for the resurrecton. And then L twist theso threads together, and 1 have another strand. Then I take a thread^-the soar let robe of a suffering Christ, and a thread of tho white ralxnent of your loved ofres before the thrond, and a string of the harp cherubic, and a string of thdharp seraphic, and I twist them all together, and I have a third strand. “Oh, you say, “either strand is strong enough to hold fast a world!” No. I will take these strands and I will twist them together, and one end of that rope I will fasten, pot to the commuajqp table, for it shall be removed, not to tho pillar of the. organ, for that will crumble in tho agos, tut 1 wind it round and round tho cross of a sympathizing Christ, ahd having fastened one end of SO ropq to tho cross I thrdw the other ond you. Lay hold of it! Pull tor your life I Pull for heaven! Women Balked Senate Confirmations. Presidents havo not been fortunate in nominating members of tholr cabinets to the United Stated supreme bench. Twice since tho wax tho senate has refused to confirm the nomination of an attorney general to he a justice. One nomination of a cabinet officer to the bench led to a grievous scandal, which is part of the his tory of Washington official Ufa The nom ination was no sooner made than there began to circulate anonymous letters in tended ho effect the rejection. These jot ters were sent to senators and to members of the supreme court. They did not im pugn the character of the cabinet officer who haa been nominated. They assailed his Wife. They contained charges such as if true must array the other justices and their families agqinst the proposed mem ber. The supreme court circle is as much a part of Washington society as the su premo court is of Washington official Ufa A nominee for the bench teres badly at the hands of me senate if ba or his wife is persona hon grata to the court or the court circle. Senators listen to the judgment of'the justices upon the qualifications of the man who is about to join them if con firmed. These anonymous letters were as vile and vengeful as only a woman could make them. They were traced by a third woman, who prided herself on her detect ive powers, to the socially jealous wife of another member of the cabinet. To this day no ono can tell how far those letters exercised influence to the rejection which followed.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Nana to Match. “Have you any neckties?” inquired a dandified young man addressing the pro prietor of the Cedarby corner store. Then turning to his companion he said, with a slight lisp: “I have a fad for getting neck ties as souvenirs of every place I visit It’s my own idea, you know.” “What color do you want, young man?” inquired the proprietor, surveying his cus tomer through a pair of Ison bowed spec tacles. “Oh—ah—l’m very fond of having them to match the color of my eyes,” said the young man languidly, opening his small orbs to their widest extent. “Haven’t got any neckties that’ll do, then,” said the proprietor, shaking his head decidedly. “I’ve got plain blue ones, real pale blue, but none with pink edge*. ” —Youth’s Companion. - • ttrnsH SEE r*CTfiPiill TKAT THE Isac-simile table Preparalion for As-1 SIGN AT U R E. B lu^theStaßfidfiandßawelsaffllß OF Dess and Ifest.Con tains neither Opium,Morphine nor Mineral. ■ to nv THE Not Narcotic. ■ I WRAPPER ■ 3 I of EVEEY A perfect Remedyfor Constipa- If* ■ fl F 4. tionTSour Stomach,Diarrhoea, Bflfl H fl SBijM | I?’. 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