The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-07
& CASSIMUS, Local Agents

cant which enthralled and sympathy | for the victim. Try to get the sufferer out of his present environment.
 Recommend any hygienic relief that you know of, and. above all implore | the divine rescue for the struggle in which so many of the noblest and grandest have been worsted. Do not ] give yourself up to too many philippics | about what the man ought to have been | and ought to have done. While youn | cheek fiushes with wrath at the foe that has brought the ruin, let your eye be moistened with tears of pity for the sufferer. In that way you will have fulfilled the injunction of the text, "Be ye angry and sin not"
 There is another evil the abhorrence of which you are all called to, and it is on the increase-the gambling prac- tice. Recent developments show that
 much of this devastation is being
 wrought in ladies' parlors. It is an evil which sometimes is as polite and gracious as it Is harmful. Indeed there f never were so many people trying to
 get money without earning 1t. But it is a haggard transgression that comes l down to us from the past, blighting all l it way.
 have seen in the archives of the na- | tion in this national capital large book in which one of the early presi- dents of the United States kept an &C., | count in his own handwriting of gains and losses at playing cards, on one page the gains and on the other the losses, and there are many pages. In other days many of national reputa- ton went from the halls of Congress and the Senate chamber to spend the night in notorious gambling saloons. Help the Unfortunats
 Tn Spain don lost in twsnty-four hours what equals $12,000, ,000 Twenty years ago it was estimated that the average gambling exchange of money throughout Christendom exceeded $l23,
 100, 000, 900 a year, but statistics twenty years ago would be tame compared
 with the present statistics if we could
 find any one able enough at figures to
 tabulate them. It Is all the same spirit of gambling whether the instru-
 ments are cards or the clicking chips or
 the turning wheel or the bids of the
 Stock Exchange. where people sell
 what they never owned and fail. be-
 cause they cannot get paid for it. A
 prominent banker tells me that he
 thinks 50000 people were financially prostrated by the recent insanities in
 Wall Street. Here and there a case is reported, but the vast majority suf- fer in silence. The children are brought home from school; the ward robe will be denied repleniShment; the
 table will have scant supply; wild
 generosity will be turned into grim
 want. Forty years from now will be
 felt the disaster of last months black Thursday.
 But. while you are hotly indignant fK1af a nrfv1 H4,x A-~ about those who wefes heeced and slain? They did not Know that their small boat was so near the maelstrom
 Some of them were born with a tend ency to recklessness and experiment and hazard. They inherited disposi- tion to tempt chance. Do not heap on them additional discouragements. Do not deride their losses. Help them to start again. Show them that there are more fortunes yet to be gained than have yet been gathered and that with God for their friend they will be pro- Vided for here, and through the Saw tours mercy they may reign forever in the land where there are no losses and infinite gains. While you may redden in the face at the fact that gambling Is the disgraceful mother of multi tudinous crimes, of enVies, jealousies, revenges. quarrels, cruelties, falsehoods
 forgeries. suicides, murders and de- spair, be careful what you say to the victim of the vice and what you do. He needs more sympathy than the man who came up from inebrity and de-
 bauch and assassination, for many such repent ard are saved, but confir- ed gamblers hardly ever reform. Dur
 ing the course of a prolonged ministry have seen thousands redeemed, many of them who were clear gone in sin, by
 Almighty grace rescued. In all parts of this land and in some parts of other
 lands I have seen those who were given Up as incorrigible and lost recovered for God and heaven, but how many confirmed gamblers have I seen con-
 verted from their evil ways? A thou sand? No. Five hundred? No. Fifty? No Two? No. One? No. I read in a book of one such rescued. have no doubt there have been other cases, but no evil does its work so thoroughly and eternally as gambling. Such all most hopelessness of reformation ought to call forth from you deeper sympathy than you feel for any other unfortun- ate. Pity by all means, for those who shipwrecked and bruised among the timbers have nevertheless climbed Up to the fisherman's cabin and found warmth and shelter. but more pity for those who never reach shore, but are dashed to death in the breakers. Be