A FEEDER OF THE GAMBLING HOUSE.
THERE are more devices in existence at the present time for pandering to the gambling mania than at any previous time in the world's history. It is also true that more money is being wasted at the present time over the gambling table than ever before. Fortunes are won and lost over a single table in a single night. The spirit of willingness to risk what one has in the chance of getting more is permeating almost every avenue of society, and is being fostered by those who ought to stand as a bulwark against its encroachments. One of the most common forms of the gambling manifestation at the present time is in the guessing lottery. All kinds of senseless guesses are invented, such as guessing the number of bees in a jar, the number of votes in some election, or the population of some city or state. There is no possible way of ascertaining the correct solution, and yet the guesser must advance, risk, a certain sum of money before his guess will be recorded. This is purely a game of chance. It is gambling, pure and simple, and he who engages in it is a gambler—on a small scale, it may be, but on a scale sufficiently large to lead straight to the table of the professional gambler. The paid guess is a stimulant to the gambling appetite; it is a feeder of the gambling house. It bridges the gulf between right and wrong at a place where the walls of that chasm seem almost to meet; but once across, the guesser is in the territory of the enemy. We have seen from time to time unmistakable evidence of the increase of this spirit among men and women. Deplorable as the fact is, it is a fact nevertheless, which must be admitted by all who read; and the paid guess is one of the principal members of the faculty in the gambling school. Fast and furious is the pace set by the great deceiver in these days, and he is strewing the path with his victims on the right hand and on the left. The Christian can not afford to tamper with the pitfalls of the enemy, even tho he find them built up in the church in the form of the grab bag and other games of chance. The Christian's life is a serious business, and is not worked out along any of these lines.