and the sons grew
up to the same infamous practices, or took a short cut to destruction
across the murderer's scaffold. Home has lost all charms for the
gambler. How tame are the children's caresses and a wife's devotion to
the gambler! How drearily the fire burns on the domestic hearth! There
must be louder laughter, and something to win and something to lose;
an excitement to drive the heart faster and fillip the blood and fire
the imagination. No home, however bright, can keep back the gamester.
The sweet call of love bounds back from his iron soul, and all
endearments are consumed in the flame of his passion. The family Bible
will go after all other treasures are lost, and if his everlasting
crown in heaven were put into his hand he would cry: "Here goes, one
more game, my boys! On this one throw I stake my crown of heaven."

A young man in London, on coming of age, received a fortune of one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and through gambling in three
years was thrown on his mother for support.

An only son went to New Orleans. He was rich, intellectual, and
elegant in manners. His parents gave him, on his departure from home,
their last blessing. The sharpers got hold of him. They flattered him.
They lured him to the gaming-table and let him win almost every time
for a good while, and patted him on the back and said, "First-rate
player." But, fully in their grasp, they fleeced him; and his thirty
thousand dollars were lost. Last of all he put up his watch and lost
that. Then he began to think of home and of his old father and mother,
and wrote thus:--

"MY BELOVED PARENTS:--You will doubtless feel a momentary joy
at the reception of this letter from the child of your bosom,
on whom you have lavished all the favors of your declining
years. But should a feeling of joy for a moment spring up
in your hearts when you shall have received this from, me,
cherish it not. I have fallen deep--never to rise. Those gray
hairs that I should have honored and protected I shall bring
down with sorrow to the grave. I will not curse my destroyer,
but oh! may God avenge the wrongs and impositions practised
upon the unwary in a way that shall best please Him. This, my
dear parents, is the last letter you will ever receive from
me. I humbly pray your forgiveness. It is my dying prayer.
Long before you shall have received this letter from me the
cold grave will have close