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4 THE PRESBYTERI/
THE CARD TABLE.
From an esteemed reader we have this inquiry:
"Docs the Presbyterian Church allow or approve of
card playing (for prizes generally) by its members, and
has it become right (by custom or otherwise) for our
ciders and deacons to have such parties in their homes?"
Official deliverances on this subject have been made
by several of our General Assemblies, and uniformly
these have been in condemnation of the gambling vice.
In 1890 the Assembly said: "Whereas, we recognize
and deeply deplore the existence and blighting- conse
quences of the sin of gambling therefore
this Assembly renews the deliverances of former Assemblies
against this evil, and exhorts and warns our
people against the insidious and destructive influences
of this sin."
There are those who contend that playing for prizes
in fashionable games of cards, played in the social
circle, does not partake of the nature of gambling. Let
us read an answer to this claim in a letter written by a
lady to the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch: "The mother
who accustoms her children to seeing whist parties,
where there is as much eagerness and endeavor to win
the prizes as there is to win the money at the gambler's
table, need not be surprised if her sons find the attractions
of that table more alluring than evenings spent in
i ui - ' -
<111 nuiiuiduic manner. Why should they see any harm
in men doing- what was clone in their own home, and
by their own mother? For what difference is there in
reality between cash and that which cash has paid
for?"
The claim is made that prizes are offered not to
stimulate cupidity, but to infuse zest and intensity of
interest into the game. But what is the secret of the
zest and intensified interest but the allurement of capturing
the coveted prize, not solely for itS money value,
but for its value as a trophy of success in a game of
chance; its value as spoils in adventure in which
others lost, and self won. Who will ?av tl-iac
of coveteousness and the trifling with justice is not as
rank, as reckless and desperate in this case as when
coin and banknotes are the stake? The professional
gambler tells us that it is not greed for gain that lures
him and impels him at the gaming table, but the strange,
mighty spell of the gambling vice; the passion for
winning, out of the uncertainties, the surprises, the
arts, the manoeuvres and deceptions of the game. The
uncertainty and suspense, when values are at stake, is
an intoxicant to the mind, and the love of this abnormal
condition becomes a base passion.
The London Tit-Bits says: "if the full story of the
card table could be written it would surely be the most
startling revelation of human cupidity ever published,
and almost every page of it would be marked by some
incident which would outstrip fiction." Some instances
are then related which illustrate how this passion is the
foe of everv noble instinrt r*m\ CAnt!mont ?"?
? V U..U avaiiiiiivui, dllU WC ill C
constrained to quote thetn to show the danger and
degradation of this vice which modern society would
fain, in some of its forms, regard as innocent:
"Mazarin's passion for gambling was so strong even
in death that he played cards to the very end, when he
was so weak that they had to be held for him, and the
kN OF THE SOUTH. March 10, 1909.
'merry monarch' spent his last Sunday on earth playing
at basset round a large table with his great courtiers
and other dissolute persons and with a bank of at least
2.000 pounds before him."
"An equally remarkable story is told of George
Payne, the great turf plunger of seventy years ago.
()n one occasion lie sat down at Limmcr's hotel to play
cards with Lord Albert Denison. later the first Lord
Londesborough. Hour after hour passed. The game
proceeded all through the night and long after day
dawned, and it was not until an urgent message came
to tell Lord Albert that his bride was waiting for him
at the altar of St. George's, Hanover square, that the
cards were at last flung down. It was Lord Albert's
wedding day, and he met his bride 30.000 pounds poorer
than when he left her on the previous day."
"When Louis XV. was at the card table the fascination
of the game made him absolutely dead to all externals
and even to decency and humanity. On one
occasion when he was playing for heavy stakes one of
his opponents, overcome by excitement, collapsed in
his chair in a fit of apoplexy. His majesty affected to
ignore the incident until some one exclaimed. 'M. de
Chauvelin is ill!' '111?' retorted the king, casting a
careless glance at the stricken man : 'he is dead. Take
him away." "
"Equally weird is a story Goldsmith tells. When
the clergyman arrived to prepare a lady parishioner
who had a passion for gambling for her approaching
death the lady after listening for a short time to his
exhortation exclaimed: 'That's enough! Now let us
have a game of cards." To humor her the narson con
* sented to play. The dying woman won all his money
and had just suggested playing for her funeral fee when
she fell hack and expired."
"When Lord Granville was ambassador to France,
one afternoon when he was about to return to Paris
he repaired to Graham's to have a farewell game of
whist, ordering his carriage to be at the door at 4.
When it arrived he wqs much too deep in the game
to be disturbed. At 10 o'clock he sent out to say that
he was not ready and that the horses had better be
changed. Six hours later the s#me message was sent
out, and twice more the waiting horses were changed
before he consented to l^ave the table after losing
10,000 pounds."
The appeal of the liquor interests that they be allowed
to continue in business because their business
brings a revenue to the community or state is absurd.
The total revenue, federal, state, and local or municipal,
from the liquor trade last year was two hundred and
sixty-seven million dollars. The cash paid into the
till of the liquor dealers by the people was nearly two
and a quarter billion dollars. And this last figure does
not include at all the cost which the tax-payers took
to themselves in supplying police, courts, prisons, and
penitentiaries, made necessary by the traffic. If one i
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y o w....rv uin ?nu (.nint-jjiuuin-cu uiu couia "oe savea, v
it would pay the national debt twice over!
If my Heavenly Father knows, my ignorance is Jnot
such a serious matter.