CHRISTIAN DUTY

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3215, 11 August 1932, Page 2

CHRISTIAN DUTY

ARCHBISHOP ON GAMBLING.

Archibshop Head, In an address in Melbourne last week, said there was more gambling going on in Victoria than he cared to think about. He considered it was more prevalent, proportionately, than in England. He could not imagine, in the present hard times, how so many people had any money to lose on racehorses. Yet they still attended the race meetings, and in factories and offices there were various kinds of sweepstakes. They could not play " ducks and drakes" with their money if they were really Christians. It was not given to them to do what they liked with, but toi use for God and Christian service. There was no better witness on the side of God than he who said: " I am a Christian, and therefore do not bet. Another man might say to him on receiving such a reply: "You are a mug." He would answer: "It is better to be a Christian and a mug than to be gambling with money and lose the sense of its value."

The archbishop said he did not say it was an unpardonable thing to put a shilling on a horse. He could quite see the attraction and the amusement of it just now. But it was a colossal temptation to endeavour to obtain easy money and fritter away what they possessed. The position was that a man who gambled was deliberately trying to, get money which he had not earned. Nothing could be more demoralising'than that.