now are not money, but the gratification
of excitement and the indulgence of passion. One, two, four hours go by
almost unnoticed. Prizes are offered for the best player. As a Catholic
priest told me after he had won a small sum with cards. Said he: "We
just put up a few dollars, you know, to lend devotions to the game."
So prizes are offered in the social gambling "to lend devotions to the
game." It is under such circumstances as these that young men and
young women receive their first lessons in card-playing. A passion for
card-playing is called forth, developed, and must be satisfied, even
though it takes one in low places among vile associates. "A Christian
gentleman came from England to this country. He brought with him $70,000
in money. He proposed to invest the money. Part of it was his own; part
of it was his mother's. He went into a Christian Church; was coldly
received, and said to himself: 'Well, if that is the kind of Christian
people they have in America, I don't want to associate with them much.'
So he joined a card-playing party. He went with them from time to
time. He went a little further on, and after a while he was in games of
chance, and lost all of the $70,000. Worse than that, he lost all of his
good morals; and on the night that he blew his brains out he wrote to
the lady to whom he was affianced an apology for the crime he was about
to commit, and saying in so many words, 'My first step to ruin was the
joining of that card party.'"

In all of its forms gambling is loaded down with evil. In the first
place it destroys the incentive to honest work. Let the average young
man win a hundred dollars at the races, it will so turn his head against
slow and honorable ways of getting money that he will watch for every
opportunity to get it easily and abundantly. The young girl who risks
fifty cents and gets back fifty dollars will no longer be of service as
a quiet, contented worker. The spirit of speculation, the passion to get
something for nothing, is calculated to destroy the incentive to honest
toil and to honorable methods of gain. As one values his character,
as he values his peace of mind, so should he zealously guard himself
against overfascinating games of chance. Once we had a family in our
Church who played cards, and who taught their children to play cards. Of
course these families had no time for prayer-meeting, nor for Christian
work. Card-playing for amusement or for money will create a pas