V 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 pn'^iTY 0 F HIIHOIS 
 
 TUTTLE 
 
 KEY- DR. RICHARDS’ DISCOURSE 
 
 

DISCOURSE 
 
 ON GAMBLING, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE CONGREGATIONAL MEETING-HOUSE 
 
 AT 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 
 
 Ifawmbn 7 , 1852 , 
 
 BY REY. JOHN RICHARDS, d. d. 
 
 PASTOR. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 HANOVER, N. H. 
 
 D. KIMBALL & SONS, PRINTERS. 
 November....1852. 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/discourseongamblOOrich 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Mr. J. H. Green, the reformed gambler, delivered three 
 Lectures in the Chapel of Dartmouth College, on Wednesday, 
 Thursday and Friday evenings, the 3d, 4th and 5th of Novem¬ 
 ber, on gambling. In the last lecture he illustrated many of the 
 arts of the gambler before the audience with cards. The audi¬ 
 ence, about two hundred, was composed chiefly of students. 
 The writer, wishing to follow up the moral impression believed 
 to have been made, preached the following discourse on the suc¬ 
 ceeding Sabbath. At the request of the Theological Society in 
 the College it is published. 
 

 » 
 
 
DISCOURSE, &c. 
 
 MATTHEW IV. 7 . 
 
 Jesus said unto Mm , 4 It is written , Thou shalt not tempt 
 the Lord thy God.’ 
 
 The temptation of our Saviour is one of the most remarkable 
 passages in his mortal life. It is full of mystery, and therefore 
 rejected by the unbeliever and explained away by the wise inter¬ 
 preter of this world. I take it in its literal acceptation and be¬ 
 lieve the Devil did actually take him to the pinnacle of the tem¬ 
 ple and say, “ Cast thyself down—no harm shall attend you. 
 Do you not believe the Scripture ? i He shall give his angels 
 charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee 
 up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ You 
 say you are Son of God—will not God take care of his Son ? 
 Cast thyself down.” Our Lord replied as in the text. 
 
 The passage is remarkable too in view of Paul’s declaration in 
 his Epistle to the Hebrews. “ He was in all points tempted like 
 as we are, yet without sin.” How interesting, that he subjected 
 himself to the same temptations we are subject to! He was 
 tempted through a bodily appetite, and through the channels of 
 pride and worldly ambition. “ Command that these stones be 
 made bread.” “ Cast thyself down from hence.” “ All these 
 things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” 
 Are not these, temptations of the very same nature that assail 
 
6 
 
 us ? And when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and sit' 
 in the robes of his judgment, the ungodly and the sinner who 
 shall have rejected him here, will advert to these things with an 
 agony which no tongue can express or mind conceive. “ I met 
 the Prince of tempters in my humiliation and resisted, I over¬ 
 came, and I did it for you.” My hearers, let me exhort you to 
 study the temptation—it contains stores of hid treasure. 
 
 My object now is to enforce on young men the impressions of 
 the last week’s lectures on gambling. I would not have given 
 my countenance to them but for my hope of a moral influence 
 operating as a strong dissuasive, abiding, and through grace ef¬ 
 fectual to restrain. And that you may not suppose the text has 
 nothing to do with the subject, I remark 
 
 First. The appeals to our Saviour by the Devil w r ere of the 
 same nature, as those which tempt the unwary to the faro table 
 and its kindred games. It was to obtain bread and wealth and 
 power suddenly, without labor, and by an impious appeal to God 
 the Author of .Nature and of Nature’s laws. To suspend gravi¬ 
 tation is to alter an established law, and in such a case, for an 
 evil end. To receive all the kingdoms of the world in such a 
 way, is precisely w 7 hat the gambler desires. It is what he seeks 
 with a passion more insatiable than the grave. For what is the 
 stake set up on the cast of a die, the rolling of a polished ball, 
 the turning of a card, but an appeal to God to modify the law of 
 gravitation, so that the glittering stake—the representative of 
 human labor, the means of power and self-gratification, shall be¬ 
 come yours without an equivalent ? I ask the question. And I 
 ask, what would be your feelings if you should unaccountably 
 find yourself in the act of praying to God so to guide the die, 
 the ball, the card, that you be suddenly enriched, and your 
 neighbor in the same instant ruined, body and soul; his wife and 
 
7 
 
 children and yearning parents broken-hearted and beggared ? 
 “ 0 God, my Creator and Judge! help me to play these cards 
 so that I may be suddenly enriched and my neighbor become a 
 maniac and a self-destroyer!!” ^And yet it is, in solemn reality, 
 the very meaning of the gambler when he enters on his profes¬ 
 sion. And what agent but the Devil or those like him could 
 tempt a man to do this ? 
 
 I know there seems a wide and impassable gulph between the 
 first essays of the youthful experimenter and tempter of God, 
 and the heaven-daring of the practised gambler. It seems to 
 him incredible—as an idle tale—the very thought of passing 
 that gulph. But turn again to the Holy Book. “ Is thy ser¬ 
 vant a dog ! that he should do this great thing ? . . . And 
 
 it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth and 
 dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died; 
 and Hazacl reigned in his stead.” 
 
 Secondly. The moral influence of these lectures will be lost 
 on you unless you now gather up the inferences, the inevitable 
 conclusions, and make them the subject of profound thought. A 
 determination now formed on the impulse of a strong impression, 
 may weigh at last against ruin—the eternal ruin of the soul. 
 You will not always be susceptible of the impressions you now 
 feel, though the same excitement were applied. Form the habit 
 of acting on the impressions you now have, and when the suscep¬ 
 tibilities and impressions become weaker, the habit will remain. 
 (See Butler’s Analogy, Part 1, chap. 5, and History of Joseph, 
 Gen. 39.) 
 
 What now are the inevitable conclusions formed in your minds 
 from the lectures—conclusions which no young man in his senses 
 can deny ? 
 
8 
 
 Conclusion 1st. That it takes years, to become an adept in 
 gambling; just as it takes years to learn successfully an hono¬ 
 rable trade, a musical instrument, the art of legerdemain, or to 
 become an accomplished thief. Is it not self-evident, from the 
 exhibition before us last Friday evening, that that man could not 
 have learned the art and mystery of gambling, except by years 
 of indefatigable labor, of profoundest attention of the mind, un¬ 
 der the highest excitement. He himself told me that, in his ini¬ 
 quitous profession, he was nothing but skin and bone. He is fat 
 now. The contrast enforces the lesson. What then is the infer¬ 
 ence ? Why that unless you determine to become professed 
 gamblers, you are completely in the hands of such. You go as 
 an ox to the slaughter—as a bird hasteth to the snare—as the 
 fishes taken in an evil net. How impressive these figures of the 
 Bible ! Have you never seen the confiding ox walk securely to 
 the stand, and next moment receive the fatal blow ? or if through 
 scent of blood his instinct inform him of danger, how they put a 
 rope around his horns and draw his reluctant weight along ? So 
 you go, or so you are drawn. Beware of the net—beware of 
 the fascination—there is no safety for you in that charmed cir¬ 
 cle. The phenomena of the human mind here are the most sur¬ 
 prising and unexpected of all. The fairy tales of the nursery 
 and the myths of Ovid are beggared by the mental metamorpho¬ 
 ses in the charmed circle of the gambler. “ 0 my soul, come 
 not thou into their secret! unto their assembly, mine honor, be 
 not thou united !” Son of your father and fond mother, say you 
 will not kill them by worse than a thousand deaths. 
 
 Conclusion 2d. It is sunbeam plain, that cheating is the in¬ 
 separable accompaniment of gambling. Was there ever such a 
 burlesque on honor, honesty and fair-dealing, as the talk of gam¬ 
 blers ? No theatrical representation, no novel, though by a 
 master’s hand, can surpass the realities of actual life in the gam- 
 
9 
 
 bier’s hypocritical professions. He means to cheat, he spends 
 his days and nights in learning how to cheat, he does cheat al¬ 
 ways and everywhere except when the contrary will serve his 
 purpose best. He spends his days and nights in learning how 
 to lie, he does learn to lie most adroitly, he lies always and ev¬ 
 erywhere except where the truth will serve his purpose best. 
 He lies by word and deed, his whole action is a lie, he is a walk¬ 
 ing, living, breathing lie. If the illustrations we have had do 
 not prove this, doubtless no proposition can be demonstrated. 
 What now is the consequence ? Why that you are as surely the 
 victim of the gambler as you enter the charmed circle, you go as 
 an ox to the slaughter, as a bird to the snare, as the fishes taken 
 in an evil net. This must inevitably follow, unless you form the 
 desperate determination to learn as adroitly as he the fell art. 
 His sleight-of-hand trick by which he changes or withdraws a 
 card, his artful device in look or word by which he diverts your 
 attention from what he is about to do, and his fair, open profes¬ 
 sion of honor and honesty, are all of a piece, and a most lying 
 piece it is. And will you enter the path which leads to such a 
 character as this ? Will you put yourself in the hands of such, 
 to be lied and cheated out of property, character, tranquility and 
 life itself? Will you rush into a Norwegian whirlpool, being 
 forewarned, and by such evidence ? 
 
 Conclusion 3. There is no peace to the gambler’s mind. To 
 his victim, the unsuccessful dupe, there is plainly none. Beg¬ 
 gary and long misery, if he lives, but more likely suicide are his 
 lot. But look at the professed gambler, who might be esteemed 
 successful. Take our friend at the confessional. He has been 
 a successful gambler if any may be so called. He has won thou¬ 
 sands upon thousands. He returned from one gambling tour of 
 five weeks with eleven thousand dollars in his pocket, and at the 
 2 
 
10 
 
 period of his reformation he had thousands, the fruits of gam¬ 
 bling (which by the way he disbursed as long as it lasted to 
 those whom he had robbed). He was surely a successful gam¬ 
 bler. But recall his statements, verbal and written, of his own 
 experience and that of others. Most emphatically the success¬ 
 ful gambler is on a billowy ocean of excitement, amid surges of 
 fears and hopes, in extreme and painful tension of mind devising 
 new and dark plans, to-day in the plenitude of success, to-mor¬ 
 row in the lurch of entire destitution, stifling remorse by new 
 crimes or seeking to drown their memory by the din of baccha¬ 
 nalian revelry. He is in “agreement with Hell,” and thinks he 
 has made “ a covenant with Death,” and yet he fears the treach¬ 
 ery of his accomplices as much as the ministers of the police. 
 He is in his own consciousness an outlaw, though walking in the 
 guise of a free man. He stands upon this one reserve — this 
 forlorn hope — that, like the rattlesnake, he will in the last 
 emergency strike his own fang into his own self and die. Trace 
 his spirit in its desperate flight, paint the horrors of his new 
 abode ; it is only a difference of degree — he has changed the 
 place but not the pain. “ 0 my soul, come not thou into their 
 secret 1” 
 
 Conclusion 4th. The gambler’s life is a life of violence. He 
 does violence to all the finer feeliugs of humanity. He does it 
 continually. He lurks in the path like a tiger for his prey, for 
 the young, the inexperienced, the unwary, the simple, who can¬ 
 not believe that such wickedness can exist in a human soul. 
 When he marks his victim and is secure of him, he pounces on 
 him remorselessly ; he relaxes not his grasp till he has drawn 
 his heart’s blood. And then he stands with less feeling than 
 marble at the ruin he has made. No tears of agonized friends, 
 brother, sister, wife, parents, weeping over a murdered charac- 
 
11 
 
 ter, or lifeless corpse, move him, except to whet keener the edge 
 of his insatiate cruelty. Recall the closing narrative of Friday 
 evening’s lecture ; the dying mother, the dead father, the hearts 
 of children broken that refused to be comforted. 0 righteous 
 Heaven, are there not racks and engines in thy dread prison- 
 house for such miscreants ? 0 Lord, how long shall thy ven¬ 
 
 geance wait ! 
 
 But, not violence to the finer feelings of humanity only, marks 
 the gambler’s character, but violence in its literal acceptation. 
 There is one page in the history of our friend the lecturer which 
 he did not unfold to the audience, his own feelings and the pro¬ 
 prieties of the occasion equally forbidding. But in his own room 
 he did unfold — yes, the scars of his infamy : here, on his left 
 arm, a scar six inches long from a bowie knife ; there, on his 
 his wrist, another from the same weapon ; and there again, in his 
 forehead, a gun-shot wound, the ball entering his temple and 
 lodging in the backside of his neck, whence it was cut out from 
 the depth of two inches. He also stated that he had been stab¬ 
 bed in the abdomen and in the lower limbs. These things need 
 no comment to sustain our position of violence — they are them¬ 
 selves proposition, proof and illustration. But they do suggest 
 the prayer of the Psalmist, “ Gather not my soul with sinners, 
 nor my life with bloody men.” And will you enter a path which 
 leads to such companionship ? Will you stop at the forking of 
 the roads and linger one moment, halting between two opinions ? 
 Will you not put your fingers in your ears, and run as for your 
 life from this city of Destruction, this living Necropolis ? 
 
 Conclusion 5th. It is sunbeam plain again, that there is no 
 safety but in total abstinence. Have nothing to do with the im¬ 
 plements of Gaming, and do not associate with those who even 
 
12 
 
 use them. Vain confidence is natural to young men, but remem¬ 
 ber, Presumption is twin sister, and Ruin follows not far off. On 
 the other hand, God giveth grace to the humble. Recall now 
 the confessions of the lecturer. His career began by frequent¬ 
 ing a bowling alley, at the age of sixteen. Here he parted with 
 a good conscience, with honesty, with character, and soon ex¬ 
 changed his honorable employment at useful, peaceful labor for 
 a jail. This beginning of things in his history is all I want in 
 this connection. Get the history of all the gamblers in the world, 
 and this for substance is the account of their commencement. 
 The steps are imperceptible, but sure — before you are aware, 
 you are in a charmed circle. Therefore resist in the beginnings. 
 John Randolph, dying, required of his physician to write down 
 on paper the word remorse , that he might see how it looked. Do 
 you, living, write down these two Latin words, Obsta principiis , 
 and see how they look ; and if you will repeat the process often, 
 of seeing how they look, you will not, probably, need the word 
 remorse to look at on your dying bed. 
 
 “ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” The beginnings 
 of this vice, I mean the stepping-stones to it,—the bowling alley, 
 the billiard table, cards, for amusement—are in a lower but very 
 J mportant sense a tempting of God, that is, you incur the danger 
 of being left of God and given over to be tempted of the Devil. 
 These implements are channels of temptation—temptation the 
 most insidious, even as amusements. With what propriety can 
 they be called innocent, when so many awful catastrophes are 
 traced directly back to them ? Can a man carry burning coals 
 in his bosom and not be burnt, or a viper and not be bitten ? 
 Our lecturer relates how he escaped from a pursuit of the police 
 and a mob in New Orleans, flying from a gambling table, by 
 swimming a creek; and found himself on the opposite bank, 
 
13 
 
 barefoot, in a den of deadly serpents (cotton snakes)—fit em¬ 
 blem as I think of gambling and all its apparatus, but especially 
 for all those decoys for youth, which need not here be enume¬ 
 rated. The plea, “ it is only for amusement,” and “ there is no 
 harm in it,” and “ the tempter is not here,” is fallacious. It is 
 more than amusement, there is harm in it, and the tempter is 
 there. 
 
 There is one feature of this vice not enough considered, al¬ 
 though there is hardly an individual, whose experience does not 
 in some degree respond. The appetite is insatiable. Back¬ 
 gammon soon becomes stale from its intolerable sameness—the 
 mind wants more excitement. Cards possess greater variety, 
 but they too are soon exhausted without a stake—the mind 
 wants more excitement. It looks with longing to that forbidden 
 tree, the stake; and when once the hand is put forth, there is 
 hardly the possibility of its being withdrawn. The indulgence 
 instead of satisfying the mind only adds fuel to the fire, and to 
 those of nervous and sanguine temperaments it is like throwing 
 gunpowder into a furnace. Beware of the first approaches to 
 the crater. 
 
 Conclusion 6. It is plain that all the outer court of this pol¬ 
 luted temple—the temple of gambling—is one stupendous plot 
 of unutterable deceit. Your fine gentleman who is all polite¬ 
 ness, plausibility—mouth full of fair professions, as if he were 
 your nearest and dearest friend, and his soul vexed at the preva¬ 
 lence of dishonorable practices, is a fiend incarnate. He is Sa¬ 
 tan transformed into an angel of light, and his name is Legion— 
 one hundred and four thousand of these gentlemen walking up 
 and down and to and fro in the earth of these United States! 
 And then the hotels and saloons, elegantly furnished and sump- 
 
14 
 
 tuously provided, and their arcs of decoy under the disguise of 
 all is fair and respectable —what a stupendous fraud upon man 
 and blasphemy of God! what a confusion of order! of things 
 true and false ! what whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones \ 
 Will you take the first step that leads to this polluted temple, 
 this dwelling-place of Devils, where all life dies—death lives ? 
 Will you take that first step ? “ Thou shaft surely die and 
 
 none the less because on every surface of that whited sepulchre it 
 be written, “ Thou shalt not surely die.” I exhort every young 
 man to get and post up in his room that moral picture, which 
 represents a full length portrait of a beautiful female, bisected 
 longitudinally in the centre, arranged in richest apparel as to 
 one half, and as to the other a ghastly skeleton, the two ex¬ 
 tremes of gambling, its fair outside and internal deformity, are 
 scarce more widely separated. 
 
 In conclusion of this discourse I remark: it is suggested in 
 various quarters, that these developments of the arts and mise¬ 
 ries of gambling by the lecturer, will increase the evil they are 
 intended to counteract; that you, Young Gentlemen, for I speak 
 to you to-day especially, will be the more impelled, Ilazael-like, 
 to do the very thing we would dissuade you from. There is 
 some reason in it, some ground to fear. We have an example 
 before us of ancient date, six thousand years ago. But I am 
 surprised at this practical assent to a fundamental doctrine of 
 the Bible, generally so unpalatable, viz. the doctrine of total de¬ 
 pravity. I am surprised to find the words of our Saviour in the 
 parable of the rich man and Lazarus so unwittingly but truly 
 confirmed. “ If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither 
 will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” For 
 behold, here is a lazar man almost literally returned from the 
 infernal world, where he had been lifting up his eyes in torments. 
 
15 
 
 He lifts up his warning voice. In doing it he proclaims his own 
 misery and infamy. He shows the wounds he has received in 
 body and in mind, while he sojourned in the charnel-house of his 
 living death. Shall now the prediction be fulfilled, and we ob¬ 
 tain a new confirmation of Holy writ, that “ every imagination 
 of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually ”—that 
 “ madness is in their hearts while they live and after that they 
 go to the dead?” Shall we have a practical illustration of 
 Christ’s words in the parable ? It may be so, but may God in 
 mercy and through the riches of his grace save you, even in the 
 midst of such depravity as the prediction assumes. 
 
 I well know that all the arguments I have used, in my conclu¬ 
 sions from the exhibition, are drawn from prudential considera¬ 
 tions. Of themselves they are powerless, and with some I have 
 fears they will not be available to withdraw, but contrarywise y 
 will urge on the more certainly to this vortex of destruction. 
 May I then, as the minister of him who knew what was in man y 
 and who for that end came down and shed his blood for a dying 
 world,—may I point you to that stream ? I know the law is 
 weak even in its terrors to arouse the dead. It may send its 
 thunders and its red lightnings into this charnel-house of moral 
 •death, and the silence of the tomb remain. But what the law in 
 its weakness cannot do, the blood of Jesus Christ can. When 
 he says “ Lazarus, come forth,” the lazar man will come. And 
 here is our only hope. 
 
 Would to God, that in the exhibition of one gigantic sin and 
 the writhings of its helpless victims, you might see your need of 
 the Strong Deliverer from all sin. The motives from worldly 
 prudence are but temporary antidotes, they heal slightly the 
 deep wounds which sin has made, they reach not the source— 
 
 *4 
 
16 
 
 the deep fountain within. The cancer will break out in another 
 place and with deadlier hue. Come then to Christ, the Lamb of 
 God, and say with believing Peter, “ Lord, not my feet only, but 
 also my hands and my head, wash me all.” 
 
 No bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast, 
 
 Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest, 
 
 Nor running brook, nor flood nor sea, 
 
 Can wash the dismal stain away. 
 
 Jesus, my God, thy blood alone 
 Hath power sufficient to atone : 
 
 Thy blood can make me white as snow; 
 
 No Jewish types can cleanse me so.