Chinese Sunday-School Gambling by N. Y. Christian Advocate

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 30, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 50.

Chinese Sunday-School Gambling

By N. Y. Christian Advocate

A NUMBER of Chinamen, members of the North Congregational Church Sunday-school of Bridgeport, were arrested Sunday evening, August 18, in a gambling den. They set up in defense that they had been to Sunday-school and went to the laundry to complete their devotion. Ah Moon testified that it was not the Chinese gambling game, fan-tan, but an innocent one in which only a supper was at stake. The game was interspersed with prayers for success. He testified that they cast their specie into a wooden box, cards were then dealt, and after a brief prayer by one of the number chosen by lot to offer it, the game proceeded. These Chinese had not been in the Sunday-school long enough to be cured of "tricks that are vain, and the ways that are dark." The jury deliberated two hours, and the aggregate fines, which were promptly paid, amounted to one hundred dollars. But let not Christian workers among the Chinese be discouraged; we could tell a more profane gambling tale than that of Christian students in a Christian college, which took place within the last three years. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."