The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-03-26

have taken thasr money, and IL YOU don't
feel mean in taking it you are meaner than
thought you were. What moral right,
then; Is left to gambling? No moral right
1T all No justice whatever IT is clear,
clean, absolute, unequivocal wrong Moth
Ing IS feft but the excitement and the UNI
certainty as who is the certaintv and the
crazy hope of getting rich without paying
Tor 1T. and whoever entertains it is run
ming against the everlasting laws, and you
can dig his grave
Now, finally, want to remind YOU where
this mental Juggery ends. 1t ends as a
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 1T acts upon the intellect. At
flrst 1T eexcites, then follows reaction. Then
more OF the poison Is taken with similar
reaction, and again more is taken and more
reaction. so. there is constant play and
interplay between taking more and more
and more of the intellectual poison with
the reaction. God help the man, for the
sundertow has got him!
My dear friends, there is something to
me absolutely appalling about getting UNI
der the power without knowing it of that
KIND OF intellectual poison. [ speak ear
nestiy because | have known and loved
gifted men who have yielded to it and gone
down. The mental unreason that is in
volred in gambling unhinges mems brains
that man can hardly himself stop. You
know men never stop doing thing unless
a 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
1T 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." It makes the game more inter
estlnng to the devil. Then comes the race
track. The more refined the man and the
finer the intellect the more surely the dis
ease. Nothing is so CHASTITY as the craving
for gambling which gets hold OF a fine
fbered man. A few days ago young man,
ia church worker, told me of & man who
confessed to him that he had crept up
stairs in the dead of winter to his little
sleeping girl and taken away the clothing
that covered her and the shoes which she
wore, put them under his coat and skunk
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, quick, or you
are lost mani You are a lost boy!
Quick! Get out of it now! You had bet
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 go on with the fiend of gambling Am
too urgent? Forgetting the dignity of the
pulpit? Let the dignity of the pulpit go.
Go home, mothers and look ON your own
boys face and tn < God that your boy
is safe. Then pray for another whose boy
is gone, or whom she thinks is gone. Gods
grace is great and she has come to her pas
| tor and spoken of this matter
Rxy IL IND nJ,,lo 4
to just one more point. 1t is sometimes
said that gambling is the product of bust
| ness speculation. | do not believe it. Spec
| ulatlon, as its Latin origin implies, is es-
sentia.ly a foresight. 1t is an endeavor to
look ahead and determine values 1t is not
an appeal to chance. We see the same root
to the word inspection, OF the word re-
| spectacle or the noun speeular, which is
| the same Latin word. Some forms of bust
| 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 al
most always the accompaniment of bust
ness 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 Annes time, minis
tiers. everybody gambled, but there was not
much business speculation No. my friends,
| 1T IS ldleness craving for excitement, illu-
sion, bad company, corruptlng morals.
These are the forces that lead men into
gambling. All gambling, even the least, I'M
| der all circumstances, is like seduction and
slavery = eternally unjust and eternally
| wrong. 1t is taking something for nothing.
1t makes every man his neighbours foe. Tt
corrupts society and undermines the fab
| ric of the American state. It is unpatriotic
and against the eternal Sinai It divorces
contract and its equivalent. Is there one
here this morning, [ wonder, who wants
his dearest friend. his young brother, to
stop gambling If so, in Gods name, let
him stop himself.