quillity of their minds, and equally to their own ruin. They cannot, it is true, stake their personal liberty, because they can neither sell themselves, nor be held as slaves. But we see them staking their comfort, and all their prospects in life. We see them driven into a multitude of crimes. We see them suffering in a variety of ways. How often has duelling, with all its horrible effects, been the legitimate offspring of gaming! How many suicides have proceeded from the same source! How many persons in consequence of a violation of the laws, occasioned solely by gaming, have come to an ignominious and untimely end! Thus it appears that gaming, wherever it has been practised to excess, whether by cards, or by dice, or by other instruments, or whether among nations civilized or barbarous, or whether in antient or modern times, has been accompanied with the most violent excitement of the passions, so as to have driven its votaries to desperation, and to have ruined their morality and their happiness. It is upon this excitement of the passions, which must have risen to a furious height before before such desperate actions as those which have been specified could have commenced, that the Quakers have founded their second argument for the prohibition of games of chance, or of any amusements or transactions connected with a moneyed stake. It is one of their principal tenets, as will be diffusively shown in a future volume, that the supreme Creator of the universe affords a certain portion of his own spirit, or a certain emanation of the pure principle, to all his rational creatures, for the regulation of their spiritual concerns. They believe, therefore, that stillness, and quietness, both of spirit and of body, are necessary for them, as far as these can be attained. For how can a man whose earthly passions are uppermost be in a fit state to receive, or a man of noisy and turbulent habits be in a fit state to attend to, the spiritual admonitions of this pure influence? Hence, one of the first points in the education of the Quakers is, to attend to the subjugation of the will; to take care that every perverse passion be checked; and that the creature be rendered calm and passive. Hence, Quaker-children are rebuked for all expressions of anger, as tending VOL. I. D It is in the nature of cards that chance should have the greatest share in the production of victory; and there is, as I have observed before, usually a moneyed stake, But where chance is concerned, neither victory nor defeat can be equally distributed among the combatants. If a person wins, he feels himself urged to proceed. The amusement also points out to him the possibility of a sudden acquisition of fortune without the application of industry. If he loses, he does not despair. He still perseveres in the contest; for the amusement points out to him the possibility of repairing his loss. In short, there is no end of hope upon these occasions. It is always hovering about during the contest. Cards, therefore, and amusements of the same nature, by holding up prospects of pecuniary acquisitions on the one hand, and of repairing losses that may arise on any occasion on the other, have a direct tendency to produce habits of gaming. Now the Quakers consider these habits as of all others the most pernicious; for they usually change the disposition of a man, and ruin his moral character... From From generous-hearted, they make him avaricious. The covetousness, too, which they introduce as it were into his nature, is of a kind that is more than ordinarily injurious. It brings disease upon the body, as it brings corruption upon the mind. Habitual gamesters regard neither their own health nor their own personal convenience, but will sit up night after night, though under bodily indisposition, at play, if they can grasp only the object of their pur suit. From a just and equitable, they often render him a dishonest person. Professed gamesters, it is well known, lie in wait for the young, the ignorant, and the unwary: and they do not hesitate to adopt fraudulent practices to secure them as their prey. Intoxication has also been frequently resorted to for the same purpose. From humane and merciful, they change him into hard-hearted and barbarous. Habitual gamesters have compassion for neither men nor brutes. The former they can ruin and leave destitute, without the sympathy of a tear. The latter they can oppress to death, calculating the various powers of their their declining strength, and their capability of enduring pain. They convert him from an orderly to a disorderly being, and to a disturber of the order of the universe. Professed gamesters sacrifice every thing, without distinction, to their wants; not caring if the order of nature, or if the very ends of creation, be reversed. They turn day into night and night into day. They force animated nature into situations for which it was never destined. They lay their hands upon things innocent and useful, and make them noxious. The lay hold of things barbarous, and render them still more barbarous by their pollutions. Hartley, in his Essay upon Man, has the following obervation upon gaming. "The practice of playing at games of chance and skill is one of the principal amusements of life; and it may be thought hard to condemn it as absolutely unlawful, since there are particular cases of persons, infirm in body and mind, where it seems requisite to draw them out of themselves by a variety of ideas and ends in view, which gently engage the attention. But the rea son |