The Christian and Gambling
GAMBLING is in the very atmosphere. It is gambling in stocks, in wheat, in corn, in pork, in beef, in nearly all the necessities of life. It is gambling in horse-races, in base-ball, in games of all kinds. Lotteries abound. The vice is become so common that careful indeed must be the Christian if he does not find himself entrapped in some game of chance, some scheme to obtain much for little or nothing, if only he be lucky. The great evil, like that of intemperance, cannot be seen so much in the single act or deed, but in the tendency and result. That is evil, and only evil; and what is evil in fruit must be evil in seed. According to the law and court decisions of Pennsylvania, the sale of candy which contains prizes in some of the packages is held to be a lottery. The only way for the Christian or honest man to do is to be willing to give an equivalent for what he obtains, to engage in nothing which embodies the principle of the lottery.