Ethics of the Card Table
“Redeeming the time.” Eph. v: 16.
HARD PLAYING is a game of chance. “That whist and euchre and other games of cards are games of chance,” says Dr. Trumbull, “cannot be properly denied. That a measure of skill can be shown in these is sure, and that there are good players and poor players is unmistakable. Yet, in the long run, the element of chance is the chief factor in these games, and this it is that gives zest in their playing. The question as to the element of chance in such games has been again and again tested by experiment, and practically with the same result. A while ago the experiment on an extended scale wTas made in this way: Skilled players were pitted against unskilled players in a large series of games, say a thousand in number; it was found that the percentage won in the one case and in the other did not materially differ. Chance rather than skill was the determining factor.”
A game of chance always has its dangers. The first danger is that it will create and cultivate a dependence upon luck in life. It is a calamity when a young man begins to imagine that he is a lucky individual, for he will then begin to depend upon his luck rather than upon honest, patient labor. This illusion tears up the foundation of character and leaves little upon which to build. Dr. Trumbull gives a striking illustration of this fact: “A young man who was an active member of a prominent church, and who had recently married a lovely, christian young woman, took a ticket at a church fair and won first prize. He was delighted. Many of his friends envied him. His mother, however, told him that his success would lead him to value luck rather than skill. He laughed at her fears and thought himself in no danger. He tried in other raffles. He won prize after prize. He was called a wonderfully lucky fellow. He finally won a prize of a fine horse. No one knew, however, of the many blanks he had drawn in the meantime. He seemed at the time to be a prosperous business man. But one day his place of business was closed. It was found that in order to obtain ready money for tickets in raffles he had mortgaged his entire stock of goods, and then had forged the name of his father-in-law to promissory notes, and now was a fugitive from justice, deserting his home and family.”
As an incidental result of a lottery by which, years ago, a fine public library was built in a western State, there were five suicides. When the victims discovered that they were not lucky and their money was gone without any equivalent, they killed themselves. This fatal dependence upon luck is ruining thousands of our young men and women.
The gambling spirit is rife. The daily press fosters it by giving tips on the races. The public officials pass it unnoticed, because, as some of them declare, it is a necessity in large cities. Periodicals are published in its interest. There are to-day in the United States forty weeklies devoted to sports in which gambling is a prominent feature. The result is seen in the increase of defaultings and forgeries. Chauncey M. Depew says, “Ninety per cent, of the defalcations and thefts and ruin of youth among people who are employed in places of trust are due directly to gambling.”
The card table is the instrument of gambling the world over. There are many other ways of gambling, but nowhere do they displace the card table. This gives to the card table a malodor of evil association. A game of cards suggests to the beholder suicides, embezzlements,, defalcations, quarrels, wrecked lives and ruined homes. The single game of cards cannot be separated from these evil associations.
Can anyone, much less a christian, afford to become suggestive of all this abomination every time he plays a game of cards? Can anyone afford to fill his home with such unholy associations? The plea that children should be allowed to play cards in the home, so that they will not play in objectionable places, is not well founded. They are the more apt to play elsewhere after they have been taught to play at home, and it is a sad fact that many professional gamblers of New York were first taught games of chance by their mothers and sisters in the home. There is often an intimate relation between the card party in the home and the life of reckless gambling in the pool-room and at the race-track. John Phillip Quinn, who kept a gambling-house for twenty-five years, declared, after his conversion, that card playing in the house was “a kindergarten for the gambling saloon.” Many a criminal has confessed that the taste for gambling which led to his ruin began in the parlor while he was playing cards with sisters and friends. Is it safe to sport with eddies above the rapids which flow so swiftly toward the Niagara of ruin? Even if we should be strong enough to keep out of the rapids, our example may entice our weaker brother to his destruction, and there is, to be sure, no one before me who will ask with Cain, u Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Cainism which asks that question is a bird of darkness which cannot live in the light of the nineteenth century. “No man lives unto himself.” Every one of us is responsible for our influence, and to say that you care not whether you help or hinder your neighbor in his struggles after a better life is to reveal a barbarism alien not only to the Bible, but even to the best sentiments of worldly people.
The card table, if it does not lead to gambling, becomes a fascination which leads its votaries to consume time that might be spent so as to bring greater happiness in the long run. There is no mental improvement at the card table, and you learn nothing of importance. Games of skill like chess, checkers, tennis, croquet, baseball and such like are not apt to throw an evil spell over us which will cause us to spend hours, days, weeks, months and years, every spare moment in their indulgence. They require some intellectual exercise, and are apt to weary us before they ruin us. But not so with cards. There are few who have the will power to play cards only as a recreation and keep themselves to rational hours. But many are so interested by the game that they forget the flight of time and are ready at any time of day or night to waste hours trying their luck. Take a young man who spends ten hours a day as clerk in a store. A good book or magazine would refresh him and impart knowledge useful to him in the future. An hour or two given to music would be a complete change and an exhilaration. After a few years he would have a store of knowledge, the mental training in getting which has fitted him for high position in church or state. But suppose he spends his evenings in playing cards, — at the end of ten years he will be weaker intellectually and less fitted to fill positions of trust. Time is capital which we should invest as wisely as we invest our money. To squander time means more waste than squandering money. We contend that card playing simply burns up time and leaves in the character only cinders and ashes.
The card table, when stakes or prizes are offered to the best players does not lead to gambling, it is gambling, and is a violation of the laws of several States. It fosters the desire to get something for nothing, which is the essence of robbery. It furnishes the excitement wThich throws its spell over young men and women and leads them rapidly to ruin. In principle it savors of the bucket-shop, the pool-room and the race-track. It is the foster-mother of dishonesty. It is the Louisiana lottery with painted cheeks and adorned in good clothes. It is high society’s contribution to the forces which carry men and women to the penitentiary. It is a hindrance to the growth of manly, honest character, because it shows to young men a wxay of getting money without working for it. Whatever may be said of a game of cards simply for the pleasure of winning, there is no argument in defense of card playing for any kind of stakes which will not justify with equal force any other form of gambling. We frequently see boys throwing pennies “for keeps” on the sidewalks, and the police have to break up such groups of embryonic robbers. We can see at a glance that the law is right, if we are to raise honest citizens whose industry and character will be an honor to the nation. But the police must keep out of the private preserves called a parlor, where the spirit of gambling is being fostered as really as among the tough boys of the streets. The progressive euchre in which the stakes are called prizes is gambling. The players in the parlor may be better people than the players in the dives, but they are doing the same thing with the same motive.
The card table is the enemy of a deeply spiritual and active christian life. Card parties are sapping the spiritual life of some churches. It is a well-known fact that the churches whose leaders approve of the card table are spiritually lifeless. They may be active in ritualistic observances and in charitable work, but as soul-saving institutions they do not remind one of the churches of apostolic times. It may be that some christians can bear the influence and atmosphere of the card table without degenerating into merely nominal church members. In my observation of more than twenty-five years I have found one man who seemed to be an exception, but his wife was not an exception. I have known many young men who at their baptism gave bright promise of usefulness, but soon fell away from the prayer-meeting, the Young People’s Society, and finally the Sunday church service. On investigation I found in not a few instances that the card table was the beginning of the apostacy. When the card player’s habit has been formed the duties of the christian life are nearly always neglected, if not totally abandoned. A church which has no desire for spiritual life, but is simply a gathering of congenial people for mutual enjoyment, can, of course, thrive on card-playing and build up its membership. But such a church is no church at all. It is a club founded on the worldly principle of self-gratification. Its success is the failure of Christianity. The world looks on and sneers. A man in Boston bought a new piano and in a few weeks complained to the manufacturer that it was not only out of tune, but full of grating, discordant noises that puzzled him. A tuner was sent and found that a mouse had gained entrance and built its nest. Card playing is a mouse nest in christian life. The music of a consecrated life in former days has been marred. The remedy is to remove the nest.
Real christians who play cards may, by the grace of God, be saved as by fire, and all their work burned up, but I hope that all of us desire a more abundant salvation. In an English town the garbage is burned up and makes a motive power which is used in lighting the streets. A great need of the church is the utilization of the waste in christian lives. If the time, talent and money wasted in card-playing were consumed in work for God, the result would be the lighting of many a dark spot on earth.
The first order given to the land forces at Santiago was, u Advance by rushes.” That meant rush forward a few steps and fall dowrn on the ground. Little progress was made. When the order for the u long charge “rang out the soldiers sprang to their feet and rushed forward to victory. The church of Jesus has advanced by rushes long enough. The life of ups and downs is too common. Our commander orders the “long charge” of a dailypersistent, consecrated life. When all the soldiers hear the order, victory will be near.