Newark post., 1913-07-23
May Christians Play Cards

Inc elements underlying the game OF
cards are of great antiquity. Perhaps
the oldest pack in existence is in the pos
session Of the Royal Asiatic society of
! London, and came to them from q high
caste Brahmin of Hondostan who af-
/ firmea that they were over thousand
years old. The American Indians used
the game with feathered arrows for for
tune telling, while the Naidas of Van
couyer Island used colored sticks and
gambled with them much as people
gamble now. The game in it's card form,
goes back to about the year 1lO0, when it
was introduced into China by a certain
king to amuse his numerous wives to
keep them from quarreIirg. 1t took the
game about three hundred years to reach
Europe, when it was used in France to
divert her crazy king. Since then its
spread has been very rapid until today
10 other game is SO popular or played
by so many people A hajf-million pack
ages are made each year in England,
while the United States derives large
revenue from their sale
Society has gone crazy over the game
until in many circles one has scant rec
ogniton if he does not play. Still we
press the question, May Christians yield
to the tendency and participate in the
game? 1t is important to observe that
| whatever the wrong may be it is not in
trinsic. There is nothing inherently evil
in the cards themselves. The paper in
euchre deck is no more communicating
than that of Bible. The ink pigments
by which the fastastic figures are en-
graved are no more evil than in your
newspaper. Intrinsically the pack of
cards is harmless. 1t is harmless until
it gets into someone's s hands under GER
tain conditions then it's work of break
ing down character begins. 1t is not a
question of what Christian may posi-
bly, do and still continue his faith in
Christ. 1t is not a question of how far
one may possibly go with the world and
then before he dies get back to Christ
1t is not a question of what some
strong mature person surrounded and de-
Tended by the best Influences may pos
sibly do and escape contamination. The
question is, What is the best type Of
Christ likeness, what will be the most
helpful to the most people and what will
be the least harmful to everybody!
The card table IS open to the follow
ing objections and is therefore an i'm
proper amusement, particularly and es-
pecially for those who bear the name of
Christ. 1t is pre-eminently a worldly
pastime. Very many who call them
selves Christians play cards, but the
great mass of players are not only not
Christians but they are he fartherest re-
moved from Christian things. The most
expert and constant players are to be
found in the saloons, cigar stores, bill |
lard halls and brothels. These places ex
hibit the card players at his best and
show the finished work of the game. This
fact will furnish food for serious con-
sideration on the part of people who are
deeply desirous of keeping themselves
from the world.
1t is exceedingly fascinating. Its
tendency is in the direction of undue ner-
vous excitement and consequent reac-
ton. The habit once formed readily |
grows into an absorbing craze. Time is
forgotten, other and more worthy things |
are neglected, life's obligations are ig- |
nored, and frequently the truest and hol-
lest ties are as ropes of sand
On an Atlantic steamer last summer
an intelligent, seemingly refined, man so
neglected his dangerously sick wife for
the card room that the passengers final
ly Indignantly protested to the captain
and secured his interference in the wife s
behalf. Within little more than a year
the writer called upon supposedly dying
woman and found her husband nonchal-
antly playing cards with his ten-year old
daughter in an adjoining room.
The game is likely to introduce one
into questionable company nobody de-
nies that great many very wicked peo-
Pile are expert card players. No student
Of the subject can fail to feel the force
Of the affirmation that many young
man learning to play cards under the
best conditions has afterward gone to
ruin because of the association into which
MS card playing introduced him. Cards
are frequently the open doorway to gam
bling, and so in more senses than one are
% be objected to. Beginning with the
.ard pack is prominently the tool of the
gambler. TO be sure one may gamble
With other tools, but this is the tool with
which people do gamble. There is no
particular harm in burglars jimmy
lor in skeleton key; nor in a metal die;
,et people found with these things in
1, I,l