The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1903-03-19

have taken :hPi" money. ard II you don't
Ice' mean IL t"hiIg u yoN are lnednsr than
! thought y,u were. Nhar moral right,
then. is left to gambling: No moral right
at ali No justice whatever. 1t is clear,
clean. abSo,ute. unequivo2al wrong. Moth
ing is left but the excitement and the un.
certainty az vino is the certainty and the
crazy hope OF getting rich without paying
for il and whoever cntertains il is rlln-
ming against the everlasting Jaws, and you
can dig his grave.
Now. finally. want 10 remind You where
this mental jugz!ery ends. II ends as n
poison ends. 1t is poison OF the mind, an
intellectual poison. Just as poison enters
the tissues OF the body and acts upon the
system. so it acts upon the intellect. At
first it excites, then follows reaction. Then
more of tn. poison is taken. with similar
reacti' n. and again more is taken and more
reaction. So. there is constant Play and
int,rplay between taking more and more
and more Of the intellectual poison with
the reaction. God help the man, for the
undertow has got him!
My dear friends, there is something to
me absolutely appalling about getting I'M
der the power without knowing it OF that
kind of iptel'"c:ual poison. speak ear.
nestly becau.' [ have known and loved
gifted men who have yielded to it and gone
vol ed in gambling unhinges mems brains.
1ndulging in gambling becomes something
that nan can hardly himself stop. You
krow men never stop doing thing un'ess
motive comes which is stronger than the
motive that leads them TO do it. The man
goes on and goes on until the Impulse and
motive to do the thing becomes stronger
than the motive that comes in to stop it.
Just the moment the impulse becomes
stronger than the constraining motive then
it is goodbye, it is goodbye! Boys begin
by betting on marbles or putting up stakes
at cards "just to make the game more in
teresting." 1t makes the game more inter-
esting to the devil. Then comes the race
finer the intellect the more surely the dis
ease. Nothing is so ghastly as the craving
for gambling which gets hold Of fine
fbered man. A few days ago young man,
church worker. told me of n man who
confessed TO him that he had crept up-
sSairs in the dead OF winter to his little
s'eeping girl and taken away the clothing
That covered her and the shoes which she
wore, put them under his coat and SUNK
off and pawned them for rum-the demon
curse. Now, with gambling the frightful
monomania is still worse. If there is any
young man here this morning who has any
coil around him, then quick. GnicI. or You
are a lost man, You are a lost boy.
Quick! Get out of it now! Noa had oct
ter lock yourself in your room and live on
bread and water You had better hold
your hands in the fire until the veins burst
than 90 on with the fead Of gambling. Am
too ucgent? Forgetting the dignity of the
pulpit? Let the dignity OF the pulpit 20.
Go home, mothers, and look on your own
boys face and thank God that your boy
is safe. Then pray fo" another whose hoy
is gone, or whom she thinks is gone: Gods
grace is great and she has come to her pas
tor and spoken of this matte:
By your kind indulgence | want to refer
to just one more point. It is sometimes
said that gambling is the product of busi-
ness speculation. do not believe it. Slec-
ulation, as its Latin origin implies, is cs-
sentia,ly foresight. 1t is an endeavor TO
look ahead and determine values. 1t is not
an aDDeal to chance. We see the same root
to the word inspection. Or the word re-
spectacle or the nom spccu'gr, which Is
the same Latin word. Some forms of busi-
ness speculation are. OF course. unfair, but
in large business sense speculation is not
guessing in advance, but looking in advance
and / do not believe the two go together.
In new. strong countries speculation is "a
ne5s opportunity. But in dead countries,
such as Spain was fifteen years ago. have
poticed that while business speculation is
almost dead, gambling is far more preva-
lent even than here. See the higher Eng.
lish society in Queen Anne's time, minis
ters. everybody gambled. but there was not
much business speculation. No. my friends,
it IS idleness craving for excitement, illu-
sion, bad company, corrupting morals.
These are the forces that lead men into
gambling. All gambling. even the least, un.
der all circumstances, is like seduction and
slavery - eternally unjust and eternally
wrong. tits taking something for nothing.
1t makes every man his neighbor's foe. It
corrupts soclety and undermines the fab
ric of the American state. 1t is unpatriotic
and against the eternal. Sinai 1t divorces
contract and its equivalent. Is there one
here this morning, wonder. who wants
hi dearest friend. his young brother, to
stop gambling' If so, in Gods name, let
him stop himself. .-..