St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-05-07


your bosom. on whom you have Law
ished all the favors of your declining
years. But should q feeling of joy foz
q moment spring up in your hearts
when you should have received thi.
from me, cherish it not. have faller
deep, never to rise. Those gray hairs
that l should have honored and pro
tected, shall bring down in sorrow Il
the grave. l will not curse my
destroyer, but oh, may Goo
avenge the wrongs and im
positions practiced upon the unwary
in. way that shall best please Him!
This, my dear parents, is the last let
ter you will ever receive from me.
humbly pray your forgiveness. 1t i.
my dying prayer. Long before you
will have received this from me the
cold grave will have closed upon me
forever. Life to me is unsupportable
l can not, nay l will not, suffer the
shame of having ruined you. Forge,
and forgive is the dying prayer of you,
unfortunate son."
The old father came to the post Of.
flee, got the letter and fell to the floor.
They thought he was dead at first, but
they pushed back the white hair from
his brow and famed him. lie had
only tainted. "Aceldama, the field of
blood!'
When things go wrong at gaming
table they shout: Foul, foul!- Over
all the gaming tables of the world
| cry out: Foul, foul! Infinitely TO uli'
Gift stores" are abundant through
out the country. With a book, or
knife, or sewing machine, or coat, or
carriage, there goes . prize. At these
| stores people get something thrown in
with their purchase. 1t may be a gold
watch or set of silver, a ring or a
farm. Sharp way to get off unsala1le
goods. 1t has filed the land with
fictitious articles, and covered up our
population with brass finger rings,
and despoiled the moral sense of the
community, and is fast making us q
nation of gamblers.
The Church of God has not seemed
willing to allow the world to have all
the advantage of these games of chance.
A church bazaar opens, and toward the
close it is found that some of the more
valuable articles are unstable. Forth
with the conductors of the enterprise
conclude that they will raae for some
of the valuable articles, and, under
pretense of anxiety to make their min
lister present or please some popular
member of the church, fascinating
persons are dispatched through the
room, pencil in hand, to ''solicit
shares" or perhaps each draws for his
own advantage, and scores of people
go home with trophies, thinking that
it is all right, for Christian ladies did
the embroidery and Christian men did
the rafting, and the proceeds went
toward new communion set. But
you may depend on it, that as far as
morality is concerned, you might as well
have won by the crack of the billiard ball
or the turn of the dice box. Do you
wonder that churches bui 1t, lighted. or
upholstered by such processes as that
come to great financial and spiritual
decrepitude? The devil says: II
helped to build that house of worship,
and have as much right there as you
have" and for once the devil is right.
We do not read that they had lottery
for building the church at Corinth, or
at Antioch, or for getting up an en-
broidered surplice for st. Paul. All
this l style ecclesiastical gambling.
More than one man who is DESTROYED
can say that his first step on the wrong
road was when he won some thing at a
church fair.
This custom may ma Ike no appeal to
slow, lethargic temperatures, but there
are in the country tens of thousands of
quick, nervous, sanguine, excitable
ready to be acted upon,
and their feet will soon take hold on
death. For some months, and perhaps |
for years, they will linger in the more
polite and elegant circle of gamesters,
but after awhile their pathway will |
come to the fatal plunge.
Shall / sketch the history of the |
gambler? Lured by bad company, he |
finds his way into place where honest
men ought never to 60. He sits down
to his first game, but only for pastime,
and the desire of being thought socia-
Bile. The players deal out the cards.
They unconsciously play into Satan's
hands, who takes all the tricks and
both the players souls for trumps-
he being a sharper at the game.
A slight stake is put up, Just
to add interest to the play. Game
after game is played. Larger stakes
and still larger. They begin to move
on their chairs. Their brows
over, and eyes fash, until now they
who win and they who lose, fred alike
with passion, sit with set jaws, and
lips, and clinched fists, and
Eyes like fireballs that seem starting
rom their sockets, to see the final turn
before it comes; If losing, pale with
.nvy and tremulous with unustered
paths cast back red-hot upon the heart
or winning-with hystcric laugh
'Ha, ha!. have it,"
A few years have passed, and he is
,nly the wreck of a man. Seating him.
elf ut the game, ere he throws the
irst card, he stakes the last relic of
lis wife-the marriage ring which
ealed the solemn vows between
hem. The game is lost, and
back in exhaustion he
Auc OTlkuL hours or the |
'ast mock his agony, and in his
lreams, fiends with eyes of fire
md tongues of flame circle about him
With joined hands, to dance and sing
heir orgies with hellish Choir Is, chant
ng: Hail brother!" kissing his clam
ny forehead until their loathsome
ocks, flowing with serpents, crawl in
O his bosom, and sink their sharp
angs and suck up his lifes blood, and
oiling around his heart, pinch it with
mills and shudders unutterable.
Take warning! You are no stronger I
han tens of thousands who have by {
his practice been overthrown. No
Dung man in our cities can escape be-
ng tempted. Beware of the first be-
innings! This road is a down grade,
nd every instant increases the momen-
um. Launch not upon this treacher-
us sea. Splint hulks strew the beach.
storms howl up and :
own, tossing unwary craft into the
ellgate. I speak of what have seen
nth my own eyes. To q gamblers
there comes no hone He