TOYING WITH DANGER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 30, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 18.

TOYING WITH DANGER.

Through cards, countless multitudes have been led to dissipation and moral and financial ruin. There is about them a taint that contaminates—an impure taint that cannot be dissociated from them. It is beyond question that addiction to card games is a certain means of demoralization, especially among young people. Yet how many indulgent fathers and mothers permit and even approve of card-playing at home, on the plea that “there can be no harm in it if the young folks play with proper acquaintances,” and do not gamble. “Father plays,” say the children; but the example of many a card-playing father has caused the son’s ruin. True, the former may never have gambled; but the son may not be able to call a halt where his father did. And so the example of his kind, well-meaning, but unwise parent becomes to him a fatal stumbling-block. Indeed, the better the father, the more injurious his example is sure to prove in such a case.

A young man once came to Dwight L. Moody and told him that he had been converted at one of the evangelist’s meetings and had become a Christian. “Now, Mr. Moody,” he said, “I wish to know whether it will be necessary for me to sacrifice all my social life and friendships. Must I give up altogether those gatherings I formerly enjoyed so much—I mean balls, theaters, cards, and the like—if I still could enjoy them?”

“Not at all!” rejoined the evangelist, very heartily. “You needn’t give up anything that you really enjoy. You must not think that being a Christian takes all enjoyment out of life. But if you should want to go to these places now—or, indeed, if you should ever again take any real delight in them, as you once did—I’m very much mistaken.” The evangelist knew that no one who had taken Christ into his heart and life could longer find pleasure in amusements concerning which there could be the slightest doubt, or indulgence in which might, through the influence of example, lead others into sin. He is his brother’s keeper, and to keep that brother out of sin, he must keep out of it himself. There is no alternative.

But even regarded from the worldly or social side, the question of card-playing deserves to be decided adversely. No man or woman ever advanced in character or esteem by such means; never was the grace of a girl or the manliness of a youth enhanced by card-playing; never were won any of the great prizes of life—honor, position, fame—by skill at cards; none ever found proficiency at the game a recommendation with the business world; none ever gained, as a stake, health, happiness, or moral or intellectual worth. Ever since the day when the mad king for whom cards were invented played with the first pack, they have been the peculiar paraphernalia of the gamester mad after another’s wealth, of the sleight-of-hand swindler, of the drunkard, and of the time-killer, who, if he squandered nothing else, wasted over them the golden hours that might have been devoted to some nobler purpose.—The Christian Herald.