Connecticut western news., 1898-01-27

and ended with the suicides pistol at Monte Carlo. They played with the square pieces of bone with black marks on them, not knowing that satan was playing for their bones at the same time and was sure to sweep all the
 stakes off on his side of the table. State legislatures have again and again sanc- tioned the mighty evil by passing laws in defense of race tracks, and many young men have lost all their wages at such so called meetings" Every man
 who voted for such infamous bills has
 on his hands and forehead the blood of these souls
 Eternal Catastrophe.
 But in this connection some young converts say to me: "Is it right to play cards? Is there any harm in game of W hist or euchref" We'll, know good men who play whist and euchre and other styles of games without any wagers. l had a friend who played cards with his wife and children, and then at the close said, "Come, now. let us have prayers ' I will not judge oth- CT mems consciences, but tell you that cards are in my mind so associated with the temporal and spiritual ruin of splen- did young men that I would as soon say to my family, Come, let us have game of cards'' as I would go into menagerie and say, "Come, let us have a game of rattlesnakes" or into ceme- tery and, sitting down by marble slab, say to the gravediggers, "Come, let us have game at skulls. " Consclen- tious young ladies are silently saying, Do you think card playing will do us any harm?" Perhaps not, but how will you feel if ill the great day of eternity, when we are asked to give an account of our influence, some man should say, II was introduced to games of chance in the year 1898, at your house, and went on from that sport to something more exciting and went on down until I lost my business and lost my morals and lost my soul, and these chains that you see on my wrists and feet are the chains of gamester's doom, and l am on my way to gamblers hell. |" Hon. ey at the start, eternal catastrophe at the last.
 Stock gambling comes into the same catalogue. It must be very exhilarating to go into the stock market and, depos- iting a small sum of money, run the chance of taking out & fortune. Many men are doing an honest and safe busi- ness in the stock market, and you are an ignoramus if you do not know that it is just as legitimate to deal in stocks as it is to deal in coffee or sugar or four. But nearly all the outsiders who go there on a financial excursion lose all. The old spiders eat up the unsus- pecting flies. I had friend who put his hand on his hip pocket and said in substance, "I have there the value of $250, O00." His home is today penni- less. What was the matter? Stock gam bling. Of the vast majority who are victimized you hear not one word. One great stock firm goes down, and whole columns of newspapers discuss their fraud or their disaster, and we are pre- sented with their features and their bi- ography. But where one such famous firm sinks 500 unknown men sink with them. The great steamer goes down. and all the little boats are swallowed in the same engulfment.
 Gambling is gambling, whether in S6UChS UT DTEddstull5 UT ulC0 UT EdC6 horse betting. Exhilaration at the start, but raving brain and shattered nerv- ous system and sacrificed property and destroyed soul at the last. Young men, buy no lottery tickets, purchase no prize packages, bet on no baseball games or yacht racing, have no faith in luck, answer no mysterious circulars proposing great income for small invest ment. Drive away the buzzards that hover around our hotels trying to entrap strangers. Go out and make an honest living Have God on your side and be candidate for heaven. Remember all the paths of sin are banked with flowers at the start, and there are plenty of help ful hands to fetch the gay charger to your door and hold the stirrup while you mount. But farther on the horse plunges to the bit in slough inextrica. ble.
 The Truth of God.
 The best honey is not like that which Jonathan took on the end of the rod and brought to his lips, but that which God puts on the banqueting table of mercy, at which we are all invited to sit. I was reading of boy among the noun tains of Switzerland ascending dan- gerous place with his father and the guides. The boy stopped on the edge of she cliff and said, "There is flower I mean to get" "Come away from there, 1" said the father. "You will fall off. " "No," said he. 1T must get that beautiful flower" And the guides rushed toward him to pull him back. when just as they heard him say, "I almost have it,' he fell 2,000 feet. Birds of prey were seen few days after circling through the air and lowering gradually to the place where the corpse lay. Why seek flowers off the edge of the precipice when you can walk knee deep amid the full blooms of the very paradise of God? When a man may sit at the kings banquet, why will he go down the steps and contend for the ref use and bones of hounds kennel? "Sweeter than honey and the honey comb. says David, is the truth of God With honey out of the rock would I have satisfied thee," says God to the recreant. Here is honey gathered from the blossoms of trees of life, and with rod made out of the wood of the cross I dip it up for all your souls.
 The poet Hesiod tells of an ambrosia and nectar the drinking of which would make men live forever, and one sip of the honey from tho Eternal Rock will give you eternal life with God. Come off the malarial levels of a sinful life. Come and live on the uplands of grace. where the vineyards sun them- selves. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is graciousl'' Be happy now and happy forever. For those who take different course the honey will turn to gall. For many things have admired Percy Shelley, the great English poet, but deplore the fact that it seemed great sweetness to him to dishonor God. The poem "Queen Nab" has iff it the