The Gambling Spirit by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 3, 1904

The Gambling Spirit

By Editor

It is a vast amount of money, two hundred and thirty-three million dollars; but that is the amount that was lost and won—gambled away—at that famous gambling institution, Monte Carlo, during the year just past. Gambling there has so increased of late that tables have had to be installed in the beautiful library on the second floor. Of this sum $7,000,000 went to the institution itself as its share in the debasing business.

The spirit of gambling is running rife in the world, increasing by leaps and bounds. It has found its way into the homes of the refined and educated, and visitors are urged to play for money. Members of fashionable churches have formed themselves into "whist clubs," and the home circle has become the training-school for professional gamblers. This accounts for the increased patronage of all the gambling places; and from these places it is but a short, swift journey to many of the other forms of vice, which are eating away the moral vitals of the race. Gambling is a conscience killer; and when consciences are deadened or dead, there is little or nothing to check the downward rush. In this increase of the gambling spirit, as in the increase of many other things that tend in the same direction, we see the coming in of that condition which the Word of God declares would exist in the days immediately preceding His return.