GAMBLING

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 4011, 13 January 1892, Page 2

GAMBLING

' ■ A Hance at its History, (A sermon delivered at the Masterton Wesleyan Cliuroh- on Jauuary . 10th by the ±tev J, Dukes,) (Continued.) Wo arraign gambling as a national evil, because it enervates its intelleotual life, That such has ever been the case tho history of gambling olearly shows; it was not so much tho demoralising features of the practice which led the Romans to legislate for its suppression. The law condemned it chiefly oa the ground of intellectual enervation. Horaco complains that youths of position, instead of engaging : in manly, healthy games, had betakon themselves to ; illegal games of chance, which rendered them effeminate and unmanly. An interval of 1500 years had not altered this phase of the ovil, for in England, as in Rome, the ground upon which gambling was first prohibited was not its demoralising, but its effeminating influence on tlie community, hence the Act of Henry YIII, 1511, after speaking in the preamble of the ' sore decay, of manly sport , and consequent loss of mental and physical vigor,' goes on to say,' Tho cause of this degeneracy has been the practice among the people of many and sundry new and crafty games, wbioh has not only diverted popular attention from the more manly and patriotic art of Bhooting with tho bow, but has given rise to murders, robberies and other felonies.' How can it bo otherwise when gambling APPEALS TO THE LOWER BASULAIi FACULTIES, and phrenologically considered, it is conceived, and the whole soberoe worjted out either at the side or at the back of the bead ? The very nature of the thing immediately arrests healthy brain exercise and development, and this one pursuit becomes such an absorbing passion that, soonty' or later, intellectual inertia

ensues, The larger and better part of the ceiebral system is unemployed —shut off from thinking, not amenable to gracious and elevating influ. ences, an opaquo conglomeration into which no remedial light is permitted to enter, a dark, dark continent of being which he dares not and does not menially explore. Hence we can all understand Charles Dickons after, gazing with his deep penetrating eyes at a temporary siicoesafnl gambler aayihe;, ' I' look at the back of his bad head, repeated in long lines on the racecourse, and on the belting stand, and I vow to God loan soo nothing in it but cruelty, covetousness, calculation, insensibility, and low wickedness.' The present rage forgambliug amounting to nothing less than a mania, fills us with alarm, for if this evil is to go on increasing at the same ratio as tbttt. of the past live years, relaxing not only the moral, but also the intellectual fibre, then, by the end of the century wo may expect to find ah overwhelming horde of 1 Byronlings' giveti up to self indulgence and voluptuous pleasures, so mentally imbecile and disqualified for elevating literary pursuits, as to re-

gard everything outside the gambling circle as intolerably flat and unintereefcing; a very large element of liaman society so inhuman, and disgustingly selfish, so oblivious to the rights and claims of their fellows, that on them the primary end of existence is to fleece others, and do the diabolical work of spreading desolation and misery. Brothars I What is the life of a nation worth when there is no place found for the arts ,and sciences, for literature, poetry and music, when

genius is forced by the uncongeniality, ol her surroundings to retire, and the works she leaves behind are regarded as insufferably dry?,'. How short'wilj be the tenure of national life when it

is honeycombed by selfishness, when treachery, and greed, and cunning;and fraud are its chief characteristic's ? By the inevitable action and psnalty of infringed natural law, it will feebly welter in its own corruptions and perish in its own rottenness. , Let us (quit ourselves, liiko men, be strong, 'and for love of country, for growth of

national xnd intellectuul life, 'lit us put our foot 'upon the nock of all forms of gambling, for it is the viper whose treacherous fane; is striking down the youth and beauty of tho colony; tho doiuonized Samson whose mighty arms are prepared to bring down every pillar of natiooal greatness.