Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-08-02
no doubt some saw, as they sat there,

nOIS0S anu lltJISGS anu
| lands, and home and family rushing
down into the vortex. A mans life
would not have been worth a farthing
in that presence had he not been ac-
companied by the police, if he had been
supposed to be on a Christian GRAND of
observation. Some of these men went
by private key, some went in by care
ful introduction, some were taken in by
the patrons of the establishment. The
officer Of the law told me, "None gets
in here except by police mandate or by
some letter of a patron. y While we
were there young man came IN, put
his money down on the roulette table
and lost; put more money down on the
roulette table and lost; put more money
down on the roulette table and lost;
then feeling in his pockets for more
money, finding none, in severe silence
he turned his back upon the scene and
passed out. While we stood there men
lost their property and lost theft souls.
Oh, merciless place! Not once in all the
history of that gaming house has there
been one word of sympathy uttered for
the losers at the game.
Sir Horace Walpole said that man
uIODDC6I
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 hlndered
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 in strong drink, some
to ply the counterfeiter' pen, and SO
restore their fortunes. some resort to
the suicides revolver, but all going
down. and 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
ency to make this a nation of gamblers.
Whatever you get, young man, in such
a place as that, without giving proper
equivalent, is a robbery of your own
soul and robbery of the community.
Yet how we are appalled, to see men
who have failed in other enterprises go
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 in
Cincinnati or New York may unexpect-
edly come upon a magnificent gratuity.
Boys hawking through the cars pack
ages containing nobody knows what,
until you open them and find they con-
tain nothing. Christian men with pic
lures on their wall gotten in a lottery,
and the brain of community taxed to
find out some new way of getting things
without paying for them. Oh, young
men, these are the threads that make
the cart rope, and when young man
consents to these practices he is being
bound hand and foot by a habit which
has already destroyed "a great multi
tude that no man can mum Der.
Sometimes these gift enterprises are
carried on in the name of charity, and
some Of you remember at the close of
our civil war how many gift enterprises
were on 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 a charity which for the sake of re-
lieving present suffering opens gaping
jaw that has swallowed down so much
of the virtue and good principle of the
community. Young man, have nothing
to do with these things. They only
sharpen your appetite for games of
chance. Do one of two things-be hon
est or die.
Where Safety Lies.
I have accomplished my object if I
put you on the lookout. 1t is a 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 go 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 a different man in min
ute. Your great want-what is it? More
salary? Higher social position? No, no.
I will tell yeu the great want of every
man if he has not already obtained it.
It is the grace of God. Are there any
who have fallen victims to the sin that
have been experimenting? You are in
prison. You rush against the wall of
this prison and try to get out and you
fail, and you turn around and dash