Gambling by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 23, 1864

Gambling.

By Editor

BRO. WHITE: The following article speaks out on one of the signs of the times very clearly. I thought it might serve the cause of present truth if it should appear in the Review. The Saviour, speaking of a class of religious teachers which should arise in the last days to oppose the warning given by faithful servants, says, "They eat and drink with the drunken."

H. S. GURNEY.

WHAT CONSTITUTES GAMBLING?

This may seem a strange question to form the theme of editorial remark, but it is one which has frequently found its way to the surface of our thoughts within the few years past, and which recent events have so intensified, that we can no longer refuse to give utterance to our convictions.

The great fair held in this city in aid of the Sanitary Commission, recently closed with the announcement that more than $100,000 had been added to the treasury of that truly noble charity. The final settlement swelled this large amount to the magnificent sum of $140,000, and the press and the people were unanimous in pronouncing it a "brilliant success."

A large proportion of this large amount came directly from the proceeds of "raffles," which constituted the most prominent feature of the fair, and in which persons of the highest respectability took an active part. What is a raffle? Webster defines it to be "a game of chance, or lottery." But games of chance and lotteries are unlawful, and all persons engaged in, or countenancing, them, are liable to be tried in our courts of justice, and punished as criminals, even to imprisonment among thieves and adulterers. Two pages of the General Statutes of this Commonwealth are occupied with the details of the law against lotteries. They are entitled "offences against public policy," and the penalties pronounced against all who shall be convicted of taking part in them, are severe. A raffle is nothing more nor less than a disguised lottery. The name has been adopted to ease the consciences of those who would be startled to do the same thing under the name of lottery. Whoever takes part in any raffle, such as were so common at the late fair, is a violator of the law, and liable to punishment. Professors of religion, Sabbath-School teachers, judges, and hundreds of "responsible" persons—women, as well as men—did openly take active part in those lotteries.

Blackstone defines crime to be "an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law." Can the persons who took part in those lotteries declare themselves free from crime? Webster, in his Dictionary, says of lotteries, that "almost all men concur in the opinion that their effects are pernicious." Is not this the unanimous verdict of all good men to-day?

But what constitutes gambling? What say our lexicographers? "Gambling, the art or practice of gaming for money." What is the essential difference between gaming for money, and gaming for a Merino sheep? We cannot see any—can any honest man or woman, if there is any essential difference between the morality of playing a game of cards or dice for a stake of one hundred dollars in money, and buying ticket in a lottery or raffle, in which the stake is a picture valued at one hundred dollars? We cannot see any.

Still further. As we understand it, the law, and the public sentiment, classes all kinds of gambling, including lotteries, as criminal, because the effects are "pernicious." Will any one claim that an offense is less an offense if committed by a judge, or a minister? Are the effects of a violation of law less "pernicious," if the violators are Sunday-School teachers, and professing Christians? Nay more, are the effects less "pernicious" if the proceeds of the crime go into the coffers of the church or the Sanitary Commission? If not, what shall we say when the thing is done expressly for the purpose of filling such coffers. Would murder and robbery be any the less murder and robbery if committed for the same purpose? There can be no difference of opinion as to the proper answers to these questions.

The spirit of gambling has increased alarmingly within a few years past, and it is now rampant. There is no disputing it or disguising it. Gambling is rampant. How much of the blame for this growing and master passion for gaming, is to be laid to the door of our churches, which have encouraged it by frequent examples, we may not say, but their "pernicious" effects are visible to the dullest observer.

We speak plainly, but speak our honest convictions, when we declare that raffling at so-called religious fairs, is as pernicious in its tendency and effects as would be the open toleration of gaming houses, or houses of ill-fame. Let then every man and woman who loves at least consistency, put their backs against the practice in future.—Massachusetts Ploughman.