Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-08-07
the losers at the game.


Sir Horace Walpole said that man
dropped dead III one Of the clubhouses
Of London His body was carried into
the clubhouse, and the members of the
club began Immediately to bet as to
whether he were dead or alive, and
when it was proposed to test the matter
by bleeding him, it was only hindered
by the suggestion that it would be I'M
fair to some of the players. IN these
gaming houses of our cities men have
their property wrung away from them,
and then they go out, some of them to
drown their grief i'll strong drink, some
to ply the counterfeiter's pen, and so
restore their fortunes, some resort to
the suicides revolver, but all going
down, aud that work proceeds day by
day and night by night. "That cart
rope" says some young man, "has
never been wound around my soul. :"
But have not some threads of that cart
rope been twisted?
Gift Enterprises Arraigned.
arraign before,God the gift enter
prises of our cities, which have tend
oncy to make this a nation of gamblers.
Whatever you get, young man, in such
place as that. without giving a proper
equivalent, is robbery of your own
soul and a robbery of the community.
Yet how we are appalled, to see men
who have failed in other enterprises 60
into gift concerts, where the chief at
traction is not music, but the prizes
distributed among the audience, or to
sell books where the chief attraction
is not the book, but the package that
goes with the book. Tobacco dealers
advertise that on a certain day they
will put money into their papers, so
that the purchaser Of this tobacco III
Cincinnati or Nsw York may unexpect-
eddy come upon magnificent gratuity.
Boys hawking through the cars pack
ages containing nobody knows what,
rntil you open them land find they con-
tain nothing. Christian men with pic
lures OH their wall gotten i'll a lottery,
and the brain of community taxed to
find cut some new way of getting things
without paying for them. Oh, young
men, these are the threads that make
the cart rope, and when a young man
consents to these practices he is being
bound hard and foot by habit which
has already destroyed "a great multi
tude that no man can number. "
Sometimes these gift enterprises are
carried OH i'll the name of charity, and
some of you remember at the close of
our civil war how many gift enterprises
were OIL foot, the proceeds to go to the
orphans and widows of the soldiers and
sailors. What did the men who had
charge of those gift enterprises care for
the orphans and widows? Why, they
would have allowed them to freeze to
death upon their steps. have no faith
in charity which for the sake of re-
Iieving present suffering opens gaping
jaw that HIS swallowed down so much
of the virtue aud good principle of the
community Young man, have nothing
to do with thcss things They only
sharpen your appetite for games of
chance. Do one Of two things-be hon
est or die.
Where Safety Lies.
l have accomplished my object if !
put you GU the lookout 1t is great
deal easier to fall than it is to get up
again. The trouble is that when men
begin to go astray from the path of duty
they are apt to say, There's no use of
my trying to get back. I've sacrificed
my responsibility, can't return" And
they 20 on until they are utterly de-
stroyed. I tell you, my friends, that
God this moment, by his Holy Spirit,
can change your entire nature so that
YOU will be different man in a min
ute. Your great want-what is it? More
salary? Higher social position? No, no.
I will tell you the great want of every
man if lie has not already obtained it.
1t is the grace of God. Are there any
who have fallen victims TO the sin that
l have been experimenting? You are i'll a
prison. You rush against the wall of
this prison and try to get out and you
fail, and you turn around and dash
against the other wall until there is
blood Oh the CRATES and blood on your
soul You will never get out in this
way. There is only one way of getting
out. There is key that can unlock
that prison house 1t is the key of the
house of David. 1t is the key that
Christ wears at his girdle. If you will
allow him to put that key to the lock,
the bolt will shoot back, and the door
will swing open, and you will be free
man in Christ Jesus. Oh, prodigal,
what Il business this is for you, feeding
swine, when your father stands Ill the
front door, straining his eyesight to
catch the first glimpse of your return,
and the calf is as fat us it will be, and
the harps of heaven are all strung, and