forget that his sovereignty is not our rule of action, nor concede that his interposition in such instances as we have mentioned affords the smallest countenance to the practice we have condemned. "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” But the sentence of "the law and the testimony" is not to be procured by cutting it up into lottery tickets, nor to be used as if the promises of life and the denunciations of death were pasted among it leaves, to be distributed by lot. As well might the divine promises and threatenings be parceled out on, a backgammon board, and the dice be rattled for a chance of heaven or of hell. If every man, whose soul is not lost to seriousness, shudders at this idea, let him also shudder at the other, which is equally profane. It is a gross abuse of the lot, and therefore a prostitution of an ordinance by the proper use of which the name of God is glorified.

NUMBER IV.

Its Abuses-Continued.

WE exposed, in our last number, that signal abuse of the lot which employs it as a means of determining the spiritual state and character of individuals. We proceed to point out another abuse far more extensive in its operation and most fatal in its effects, we mean games of chance. Under this general appellation we comprehend cards, dice, and other games, of which the lot is an essential part.

The universal and decisive objection to them in every form and under all circumstances is, that they are profane appeals to the divine throne, and a wanton prostitution of a divine ordinance. For the premises which support this conclusion we refer the reader to our first two numbers.

We are aware that our position will not readily obtain the concurrence of many who are far from being friendly to gaming or gamblers. Both are held in abhorrence by soberminded men throughout the whole world. But their opinions greatly vary as to the nature of the games.

Some consider them, or at least certain forms of them, as innocent and pleasant recreations, when they are not subservient to the sordid passions; that is, when the parties either do not play for money, or for no more than is necessary, to keep up the spirit of the competition.

Others despise them as frivolous and ignoble pastimes, without attaching to them the blame of direct immorality, unless they become incentives to crime by becoming the sources of unlawful gain.

Many beyond doubt there are, whose indulgence in these sports carries them to no such excess; who treat gaming and gamesters with merited contempt; and who, while they give a leisure hour to the card-table or the die, have not the smallest suspicion that their amusement has an irreligious taint, or tends to weaken in the slightest degree the sense and effect of those obligations by which man is bound to God his Maker.

With these we remonstrate with all who are not strangers to compunctious feeling after they have risen from a game of hazard; and with all, who, although they have occasionally speculated upon the question, have never been at the pains to decide it satisfactorily to their own minds.

Gaming has always had an evil reputation in all civilized countries, especially such as have been enlightened by the Christian revelation. It is both curious and instructive to mark the gradations of this sentiment.

Gamesters themselves, in whom the avaricious lust has not quite overpowered both integrity and shame, know and feel that their occupation is vile; for they study secrecy, not merely to elude the penal statutes of the law, but also to save appearances among men better than themselves. Fame, low as is her credit for veracity, has put less truth into her tattle, than is usual even with her, if there are not in this very city of New York, gentlemen, and ladies too, who consume their midnights over the fascinating chance, amid piles of money; but who could never meet, in broad day, the infamy which confronts an avowed

gambler.

This, it may be said, is referable to that wholesome discipline by which public opinion coerces the impudence of vice. For the most part it is so. But public opinion in an effect, and like all other effects must have a cause. Set the gamblers aside, and there remains a large body of sober, discreet members of the community who never gamble, who view gaming for money as altogether unjustifiable, as a

system of rapacity and plunder, and would on no account whatever so far degrade themselves in their own eyes as to pollute their hands with the product of the gaming board. Yet a game of chance, detached from such applications of it, they will not stigmatize as immoral. How did they arrive at the distinction? How will they show that a thing lawful for the purposes of amusement may not be lawful for the purposes of emolument also? Why should that be ill-gotten which is not gotten by illmeans? Why should an hour or two spent at the card-table gratis be consistent with virtue, and that same time spent in the same employment be condemned as criminal the moment it profits one's purse? Making money is not vicious; by the terms of the argument cards and dice are not vicious; and yet making money by cards or dice is accounted vicious by such a strong and general coincidence of opinion as imposes law upon society. What is there, then, to render the combination immoral? It cannot be mere excess of ardor in the pursuit of lucre. Labor may be excessive; enterprise may be excessive; economy may be excessive; yet economy, enterprise, and labor, are not immoral methods of acquiring property. If the dreadful consequences, which in all ages have followed the spirit of gaming,