Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1903-03-19

thought you were What moral right,
then. Is left to gambling? No moral right
at all NJ. justice whatever. 1t is clear,
| clean. absolute, unequivocal wrong. Moth
ing is left but the excitement and the un.
certainty as who is the certainty and the
crazy hope OF getting rich without paying
for it. and whoever cntertains it is run
| ming against the everlasting laws, and you
can dig his grave.
Now, finally. want to remind You where
this mental jugglery ends. 1t ends as
poison ends. It is'a 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 the poison is taken. with similar
react II, 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
undertow has got him!
My dear friends, there is something to
me absolutely appalling about getting un-
kind Of Intellectual poison. J. speak ear.
nestly because | have known and loved
gifted men who have yielded to it and gone
down. The mental unreason that is in
vol ed in gambling unhinges mems brains.
1ndulging in gambling becomes something
that a 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 constrainng motive then
it is goodbye, it is goodbyc!l 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
track. The more refined the man and the
ease. Nothing is so CHASTITY as the craving
for gambling which gets hold of fine.
6bered man A few days ago a young man.
a 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
off and pawned them for rum-the demon
curse. Now. with gambling the frightful
monomana is still worse. If there is any
young man here this morning who has any
suspicion that the serpent is getting that
coil around him. then quick, quick, or you
are lost man, You are Il lost hoy!
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
than go on with the fiend of gambling An,
I too gent? Forgetting the dignity of the
pulpit? Let he dignity Of the pulpit go.
Go home, mothers. and look on your own
boys face and thank God that your boy
is safe. Then pray for another whose hoy
ia gone. or whom she thinks is gone, Gods
grace is great and she has come to her pas.
tor and spoken OF this matter.
By your kind indulecnc | want to refer
10 Just one more point 1t is sometimes
said that gambling is the product of buSl.
ness speculation. do not believe it. Spec.
ulation, as its Latin origin implies, is eS'
sentiaiy 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, or the word re.
spectacle or the noun specular. which -
the same Latin word. Some forms OF busl.
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 busl.
ne7s opportunity. But in dead countries,
such as Spain was fifteen years ago. have
poticed that while business speculation ls
almost dead. gambling Is far more preva.
lent even than here. See the higher Eng
hsh society in Queen Annes time. minis.
ters, everybody gambled. but there was not
much business speculation No my friends,
it rs ideness craving for excitement, illu'
sion. bad company. corruptlng morals.
These are the forces that lead men into
gambl ng. All gambling even the least, I'M:
der all circumstances. ia like seduction and
slavery eternally unjust and eternalls
wrong. 1t is taking something for nothing.
1t makes every man his neighbor's foe. 1t
corruDts society and undermines the fab
ric of the American state 1t is mpatriotic
and against the eternal Sinai. 1t 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.