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Gambling.

A LECTURE

BY THE

REV. SAMUEL MARTIN.

GAMBLING.

Two persons, a lady and a clergyman, were looking through a telescope at the moon. Luna had not yet filled her horns. The lady said she thought the moon's horns were like the ends of Cupid's bow. The clergyman replied that he thought them like the spires of a cathedral. The fair lady's mind was occupied with an engagement matrimonial, and the good minister's thoughts were directed to preferment ecclesiastical: and hence the difference of the objects to which the moon was likened. An absolutely single eye is very rare-it exists, it may be, only in God. Things appear to us according to the state of our organs of vision. We seldom if ever see the objective as it really is; we clothe it with the subjective. Things are to us what we are to them. In considering and discussing any familiar topic, we bring to it states of mind. and associations which affect greatly our views and judgment, so that before we can be sure that we have judged rightly we must examine our own selves.

We lecture this evening upon the subject of gambling. Now, we have no doubt that the associations of different men with gaming are as wide asunder as a cathedral and the bow of Cupid when both, according to our story, were seen in the new moon. One man sees lawful amusement in gambling; another, justifiable excitement; a third, defensible means of gain; while the lecturer beholds in it imminent danger and

positive transgression of God's law. Instead of being, in his judgment, like a green field upon which a man may safely lie down, it is a path by the side of a precipice, threatening death at every step. If any have seen gaming improve the health, quiet the mind, cheer the heart, render the character more fair, advance the social position, and really benefit the gambler, they will look at our topic from these stand-points. But as we find its victims in the courts of insolvency and of bankruptcy, in the cellars and garrets of poverty, in the dark dens of crime and infamy, in the cells of our gaols, in our penal settlements, and at the gallows itself, we see in gambling nothing but sin, danger, and ruin

Do any think our subject ill chosen because not of general interest? It is not possible to find a topic which meets the views and expectations of all parties. But we must claim common interest for the theme of to-night. Women of England! it must interest you, because connected with the wellbeing and well-doing of the men. I know, moreover, that gambling is practised by your sex. But what if it be unknown. to you ?-it will interest you because it concerns the men. Sisters! it concerns your brothers. Wives! it concerns your husbands. Mothers! it concerns your sons. Woman! it concerns man-with whose hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, pursuits and prospects, prosperity and adversity, sins and sufferings, you have been identified since the dark day he was driven from Paradise-identified, we say, with a spirit of selfsacrifice and generous devotion, the expressions of which have expounded and confirmed the text: "And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man."

I will respect

I am sure of the attention of the women. Bally express my hope to be favoured with that of the menspecially of the young men, to whom our subject is of peculiar anered and importance.

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