t last, it becomes an
ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the
heart.'

For my own part I know not the _names_ of cards; and could never take
interest enough in card-playing to remember them. I have always
wondered how sober and intelligent people, who have consciences, and
believe the doctrine of accountability to God--how professing
Christians even, as is the case in some parts of this country, can sit
whole evenings at cards. Why, what notions have they of the value of
time? Can they conceive of Him, whose example we are bound to follow,
as engaged in this way? The thought should shock us! What a Herculean
task Christianity has yet to accomplish!

The excess of this vice has caused even the overthrow of empires. It
leads to conspiracies, and creates conspirators. Men overwhelmed with
debt, are always ready to obey the orders of any bold chieftain who may
attempt a decisive stroke, even against government itself. Catiline had
very soon under his command an army of scoundrels. 'Every man,' says
Sallust, 'who by his follies or losses at the gaming table had consumed
the inheritance of his fathers, and all who were sufferers by such
misery, were the friends of this perverse man.'

Perhaps this vice has nowhere been carried to greater excess than in
France. There it has its administration, its chief, its stockholders,
its officers, and its priests. It has its domestics, its pimps, its
spies, its informers, its assassins, its bullies, its aiders, its
abettors,--in fact, its scoundrels of every description; particularly
its hireling swindlers, who are paid for decoying the unwary into this
'hell upon earth,' so odious to morality, and so destructive to virtue
and Christianity.

In England, this vice has at all times been looked upon as one of
pernicious consequence to the commonwealth, and has, therefore, long
been prohibited. The money lost in this way, is even recoverable again
by law. Some of the laws on this subject were enacted as early as the
time of Queen Anne, and not a few of the penalties are very severe.
Every species of gambling is strictly forbidden in the British army,
and occasionally punished with great severity, by order of the
commander in chief. These facts show the state of public opinion in
that country, in regard to the evil tendency of this practice.

Men of immense wealth have, in some instances, entered gambling houses,
and in the short space of an hour have found