DANGER OF THE CARD TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 187, 8 August 1921, Page 3

DANGER OF THE CARD TABLE

An appeal to the young people of his congregation to leave the card table alone if they valued their souls was made by the Eev. J. W. Kemp, of the Auckland Tabernacle, at a service on Saturday night. Mr. Kemp called his discountI "The Curse of the Card Table." He I described the card table as an insidious evil. It enthralled the life in impiety, it ministered to dissipation, and it was an attendant of degradation. It -was allied with beer and whisky in the saloon, with the thief in his hiding place, with, the pirate on shipboard, and with the debauched in the brothel. These were and always had been its native associations. It induced religious leanness and destroyed spiritual usefulness. Even Sabbath observance diet not escape the desecration of the game. The card table had a deadening influence, and card players were almost impervious to Gospel appeals. Speaking of the institution of the card table as a vice, the preacner said it was charged that dishonesty, tendencies to take unjust advantages, and cheating were inseparable from it. Perhaps many who played did so with , the strictest integrity of intentions. Those, however, who had no refined scruples against taking petty advantages lound many ways of promoting their interests in the game —the sly wink, the suggestive nod, the ..negation of the head, the accidental disclosure of the card, and so on. That cheating was an accompaniment of many or most of the games of cards in which a prize was a consideration was freely , conceded by practically anyone who played the game. The card table led to a neglect of duties, personal and general, private and : public, and thus became a moral injury. ' It produced jealousy, contentions, envy, and led to alienations, bickerings, and strife. While some of these results could 1 not be affirmed against card playing ! itself, yet they might all be affirmed to 1 the card table as an institution. Undoubtedly the card table incited to 5 the growing vice of gambling. To many it armed temptation to gamble with ; almost resistless power, even though the • card table be domiciled in the home. 1 Gambling was a great fountain-source of 2 crimes of the gravest character. In a s lar-e proportion of cases of gambling i the°startin°- point was the card table.