to its own purposes, not caring how much these little instruments of
cheerfulness in human disease were converted into instruments for the
extension of human pain.

In the same manner as the spirit of gaming has seized upon these
different institutions and amusements of antiquity, and turned them from
their original to new and destructive uses, so there is no certainty,
that it will not seize upon others, which may have been innocently
resorted to, and prostitute them equally with the former. The mere
prohibition of particular amusements, even if it could be enforced,
would be no cure for the evil. The brain of man is fertile enough, as
fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another. And if all the
games, now in use, were forbidden, it would be still fertile enough to
invent others for the same purposes. The bird that flies in the air, and
the snail, that crawls upon the ground, have not escaped the notice of
the gamester, but have been made, each of them, subservient to his
pursuits. The wisdom, therefore, of the Quakers, in making it to be
considered as a law of the society, that no member is to lay wagers, or
reap advantage from any doubtful event, by a previous agreement upon a
monied stake, is particularly conspicuous. For, whenever it can be
enforced, it must be an effectual cure for gaming. For we have no idea,
how a man can gratify his desire of gain by means of any of the
amusements of chance, if he can make no monied arrangements about their
issue.


SECT. II.

_The first argument for the prohibition of cards, and of similar
amusements, by the Quakers, is--that they are below the dignity of the