himself: 'Well, if that is the kind of Christian people they have in
America, I don't want to associate with them much.' So he joined a
card-playing party. He went with them from time to time. He went a
little further on, and after a while he was in games of chance, and lost
all of the $70,000. Worse than that, he lost all of his good morals; and
on the night that he blew his brains out he wrote to the lady to whom he
was affianced an apology for the crime he was about to commit, and
saying in so many words, 'My first step to ruin was the joining of that
card party.'"

In all of its forms gambling is loaded down with evil. In the first place
it destroys the incentive to honest work. Let the average young man
win a hundred dollars at the races, it will so turn his head against slow
and honorable ways of getting money that he will watch for every
opportunity to get it easily and abundantly. The young girl who risks
fifty cents and gets back fifty dollars will no longer be of service as a
quiet, contented worker. The spirit of speculation, the passion to get
something for nothing, is calculated to destroy the incentive to honest
toil and to honorable methods of gain. As one values his character, as
he values his peace of mind, so should he zealously guard himself
against overfascinating games of chance. Once we had a family in our
Church who played cards, and who taught their children to play cards.
Of course these families had no time for prayer-meeting, nor for
Christian work. Card-playing for amusement or for money will
create a passion that must be satisfied, although one must give up home
and business and pleasure. In a town where we once lived a young man
and his wife attended our Church. In every way the husband was kind,
and attentive to business. But he had fallen a victim to playing cards
for money. When that passion would seize him he would leave his
business, his hired help, his home and wife and little one, and would