The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-09-09
THE GAMBLERS SOUL.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Tells How It
Becomes Enslaved.
The Disposition to Hazard and What 1t
Leads to-Gambling Insidious
Sin that Grags Its Devotee
Downward to Perdition.

The following sermon by Rev. I. De |
Witt Talmage is devoted to warning
men against the insidious sin of gam
bling. 1t is based on the text:
Woe unto them that sin as it were with a cart
rope.-Isaiah v. IL.
There are some iniquities that only
nibble at the heart. After a lifetime
of their work. the man still stands up
right, respected and honored. These
vermin have not strength enough to
gnaw through mans character. But
there are other transgres5ions that lift
themselves up to gigantic proportions,
and seize hold of a man and bind him
with throngs forever. There are some
iniquities that have such great en-
phasis of evil that he who commits
them may be SAID to sin as with
cart rope. suppose you know how
they make great rope. The stuff out
of which it is fashioned is nothing
but tow which you pull apart without
any exertion of your fingers. This is
spun into threads, any of which you
could easily snap, but great many OF
these threads are interwOund-then
you have rope strong enough to bind
an OK or hold ship in tempest. lspeak
to you of the sin of gambling. cart
rope in strength is that sin, and yet
| wish more especially to draw your
attention to the small threads of in
fluence out of which that mighty in
iqulty is twisted. This crime is on the
advance, so that it is well not only
that fathers, and brothers, and sons,
be interested in such a discussion,
but that wives, and mothers, and
sisters, and daughters look out
lest their present home be sacrificed,
or their intended home be blasted. No
man, no woman, can stand aloof from
such subject as this and say: "lth has
no practical bearing upon my life, for
there may be for short time in your
history an experience in which you will
find that the discussion involved three
| worlds-earth, Heaven, hell. There are
| gambling establishments by the thou
sands. There are about ), so profess
sional gamblers. Out of all the gam
| bling blishments, how many of
them do you suppose profess to
be honest? Ten. Then ten pro-
Tossing to be honest because
they are merely the ante-chamber
to those that are acknowledged fraud
ulent. There are tirst-class establish
ments You step a little way out of
Broadway, New York. You go up the
marble stairs. You ring the bell. The
liveried servant introduces you. The
walls are lavender tinted. The man
tells are Of Vermont marble. The pic
lures are ''Jephthah's Daughter" and
Dore's "Dante's and Virgirs Frozen
Region of HELL" a most appropriate Sc
lection, this last, for the place. There
is the roulette table, the finest, cost
liest, most exquisite piece of furniture
in the United States. There is the
banqueting room, where, free of charge
to the guests, you may find the plate,
and viands, and wines, and ci
gars, sumptous beyond parallel
Then you come to the sec
ond-class gambling establishment
To it you are introduced by care
through some roper in" Having en-
= tered. YOU must either gamble or fight
Sanded cards. dice loaded with quicksil
yer, poor drinks mixed with more pool
drinks, will soon help you to get rid o
? all your money to tune in short mete
j with staccato passages. You wanted
, to see. You saw. The low villains o
that place watch you as you come in
Does not the panther, squat in tn
! grass, know calf when he sees it
= Wrangle not for your rights in tha
! place, or your body will be thrown
e bloody into the street, or dead into tn
0 river.
8 You 60 along little further an
g find the policy establishment. In tina
t place you bet on numbers. Betting O.
t two numbers is called ''saddle;" bel
d ting on three numbers is called a gig;
5 betting on four numbers is called
t .'horse;" and there are thousanes {
i young men leaping into that Saddle,
and mounting that gig" and benin
that horse riding to perdition. Their
is ALWAYS one kind Of sign on the doc
: -"Exchange;" a most appropriate tit
: for the door, for there, in that room,
g man exchanges health, peace an
Il Heaven for loss of health, loss {
d home, loss of family, loss of immort;
IL soul. Exchange sure enough and il
il finite enough.
: Now, you acknowledge that is ca
o rope of evil, but you want to kno
q what are the small threads out
= which it is made. There is, in man
q, disposition to hazard. They feel
q delight in walking near the precipi
e because of the sense of danger. The
K are people who 60 upon Jungfrau, n
- for the largeness of the prospect, b
for the feeling that they have
thinking, what would happen if
should fall off" There are perso
IN who have their blood filliped and a
IN celerated by skating very near an a
ID hole. There are men who find po
y tive delight in driving within t'
IS inches of the edge of a bridge. 1t
De this disposition to hazard that fin
n development in gaming practic
q Here are $500. I may stake them.
n / stake them I may lose them; bu
IN NAV win S., 900. Whichever it turn:
have the excitement Shuttle