The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-04-15
4 DOWNWARD PATH
DIR. TALMAGE POINTS OUT THE
END OF THE GAMBLER,

A Powerful Indictment of the Evils In
olved In Games of Chance-Church Raj
les Demonstrating Results In Nor
al as Well az Financial Loss.
The spirit Of hazard in this sermon
is arraigned by DR.. Talmage, and the
downward path Of the gamester is
plainly pointed out: text, Acts i, 10,
"Aceldama-that is to say, the field of
blood"
The money that Judas gave for sur
rendering Christ was used to purchase
a graveyard. AS the money was blood
money, the ground bought by it was
called in the Syriac tongue Aceldama,
meaning 1.-The field of blood" Well,
there is one word / want to write today
over every race course where wagers
are staked and every poolroom and
every gambling saloon and every table,
public or private where men and wo-
men bet for sums of money, large or
small, and that is a word incarnadined
with the life of innumerable Victims
Aceldama.
The gambling spirit which is at all
times a s%tupendous evil, ever and anon
sweeps over the country like an cpl
demic, prostrating u%ncounted thou
sands. There has never been a worse
attack than hat from which all the
villages, towns and cities are now suf-
fering.
While among my hearers and readers
are those who have passed on into the
afternoon of life and the shadows are
lengthening and the sky crimsons with
the glow of the setting sun, a large
number of them are in early life, and
the morning is coming down out OF
the clear sky upOn them, and the
bright air is rodelent with spring bios
SONS, and the stream of life, cleaning
and glancing, rushes on between flow
cry banks, making music as it goes.
Some Of you are engaged in mercantile
concerns as clerks and bOokkeepers,
and your whole life is to be passed in
the exciting world of traffic. The
sound of busy life stirs you as the drum
stirs the fiery war horse. Others are
in the mechanical arts, to hammer and
chisel your way through life, and sue
cess awaits you. Some are preparing
for professional life, and grand oppor-
tunities are before you-nay, some of
you already have buckled on the ar
NOR. But, whatever yOur age and call
ing, the subject of gambling, about
which l speak today is pertinent.
A WORLDWIDE EVIL.
Co~oo on0 uyhon on oCcociofinn
for the suppression of gambling was
organized an agent of the association
came to a prominent citizen and asked
him to p%atronize the society. He said:
No; | can have no interest in such an
organization. | am in nOwise affected
by the evil" At that very time his
son, who was his partner in business,
was one of the heaviest players in a
famous gambling establishment. An
other refused his patronage on the
same ground, not knowing that his
first bookkeeper, though receiving a
salary Of only 1900, was losing from
$50 to 500 per night. The president
of a railroad company refused to pa
trOniZe the institution, saying, That
society is good for the defense of mer-
chants, but we railroad people are not
injured by the evil"-nOt knowing that
at that very time two of his cOnduc-
tors were spending three nights of
each week at faro tables in New York.
Directly or indirectly this evil strikes
at the whole world.
Gambling is the risking Of something
more or less valuable in the hope of
winning more than you hazard. The
instruments of gaming may differ, but
the principle is the same. The
shutting and dealing cards, however
full of temptation, is not gambling I'M
less stakes are put up. while on the
other hand gambling nay be carried
on without cards or dice or Billiards or
a tenpin alley. The man who bets on
horses, on elections, on battles, the
man who deals in fancy stocks or
conducts a business which hazards ex-
ira capital or goes into transactions