eep a secret. Men talk too much--and women too. There
is a time to keep silence, as well as a time to speak. Although not
belonging to any of the great secret societies about which there has
been so much violent discussion, I have only words of praise for
those associations which have for their object the reclamation of
inebriates, or like the score of mutual benefit societies, called by
different names, that provide temporary relief for widows and orphans,
and for men incapacitated by sickness or accident for earning a
livelihood.

I suppose there are club-houses in our cities to which men go with
clear consciences, and from which they come after an hour or two
of intellectual talk, and cheerful interview, to enjoy the domestic
circle. But that this is not the character of scores and hundreds of
club-houses we all know. Can I, then, pass this subject by without
exposition of the monstrous evil? There are multitudes who are
unconsciously having their physical, moral, and eternal well-being
endangered by club-room dissipation. Was it right to expose the plot
of Guy Fawkes, by which he would have destroyed the Parliament of
England? And am I wrong in disclosing a peril which threatens not only
your well-being here, but your throne in heaven?

I deplore this ruin the more because this style of dissipation is
taking down our finest men. The admission-fee sifts out the penurious
and takes only those who are called the best fellows. Oh! how changed
you are! Not so kind to your wife as you used to be; not so patient
with your children. Your conscience is not so much at rest. You laugh
more now, and sing louder than once, but are not half so happy. It is
not the public drinking-saloon that is taking you down, nor theatrical
amusements, nor the houses of sin that have cost thousands of other
men their eternity: but it is simply and undeniably your club-room.
You do not make yourself as agreeable in your family as once. You go
home at twelve o'clock with an unnatural flush upon your cheek and
a strange color in your eye that you got at the club. You merely
acknowledge that you feel queer. You say that champagne never
intoxicates; that it only exhilarates, makes the conversation fluent,
shakes up the humor, and has no bad effect except a headache next day.
Be not deceived. Champagne may not, like whiskey, throw a man under
the table; but if, through anything you drink, you gain an unnatural
fluency of speech and glow of feeling,