Take warning! You are no stronger than tens of
thousands who have, by this practice, been overthrown.
No young man in our cities can escape being tempted.
Beware of the first beginnings! This road is
a down-grade, and every instant increases the momentum.
Launch not upon this treacherous sea. Split hulks
strew the beach. Everlasting storms howl up and
down, tossing the unwary crafts into the Hell-gate.
I speak of what I have seen with my own eyes.
I have looked off into the abyss and have seen the
foaming, and the hissing, and the whirling of the
horrid deep in which the mangled victims writhed, one
upon another, and struggled, strangled, blasphemed,
and died—the death-stare of eternal despair
upon their countenances as the waters gurgled over
them.
To a gambler’s death-bed there comes no hope.
He will probably die alone. His former associates
come not nigh his dwelling. When the hour comes,
his miserable soul will go out of a miserable life
into a miserable eternity. As his poor remains
pass the house where he was ruined, old companions
may look out a moment and say—“There
goes the old carcass—dead at last,”
but they will not get up from the table. Let
him down now into his grave. Plant no tree to
cast its shade there, for the long, deep, eternal
gloom that settles there is shadow enough. Plant
no “forget-me-nots” or eglantines around
the spot, for flowers were not made to grow on such
a blasted heath. Visit it not in the sunshine,
for that would be mockery, but in the dismal night,
when no stars are out, and the spirits of darkness
come down horsed on the wind, then visit the
grave of the gambler!
SOME OF THE CLUB-HOUSES.
Iniquity never gives a fair fight. It springs
out from ambush upon the unsuspecting. Of the
tens of thousands who have fallen into bad habits,
not one deliberately leaped off, but all were caught
in some sly trap. You may have watched a panther
or a cat about to take its prey. It crouches
down, puts its mouth between its paws, and is hardly
to be seen in the long grass. So iniquity always
crouches down in unexpected shapes, takes aim with
unerring eye, and then springs upon you with sudden
and terrific leap. In secret places and in unlooked-for
shapes it murders the innocent.
Men are gregarious. Cattle in herds. Fish
in schools. Birds in flocks. Men in social
circles. You may, by the discharge of a gun, scatter
a flock of quails, or by the plunge of the anchor send
apart the denizens of the sea; but they will gather
themselves together again. If you, by some new
power, could break the associations in which men now
stand, they would again adhere. God meant it so.
He has gathered all the flowers and shrubs into associations.
You may plant one “forget-me-not” or “hearts-ease”
alone, away off upon the hillside, but it will soon
hunt up some other “forget-me-not” or “hearts-ease.”
Plants love company; you will find them talking to
