The Gambling Element in Life: A Sermon Preached in Boston, Oct, 29, 1871 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Gambling Element in Life: A Sermon Preached in Boston, Oct, 29, 1871Developments of childhood. Watch children narrowly, and you will find that the plays they enter upon with most inter est, and hold to with most tenacity, are those into which the chance element enters. The contingencies of the game give you the clew to its fascination. It is not merely sport, frolic, skill, which attract, please, satisfy the child but watch it 'closely, and you will see the eagerness of its zest pro portioned to the uncertainty of its success. What is sure what afi'ords no excitement, what has inexorable law, what must be so, scarcely provokes repetition, palls at once, is felt to be dull, and set aside. The clew to the empire that games of marbles have over boys if I carry a true mem ory from my boyhood, the most fascinating of games is not in the nicety of the skill required, so much as in the large room there is for missing, the great uncertainty which must attend even the best player. For the time, the whole boy being is held in thrall, and as the season goes, and the spirit in him waxes hot, you find him goading, with fresh fuel, the glowing fire, in the true gamester's spirit adding the game ster's stake, a thing that I am amazed that those calling themselves parents a moment allow. So is it with the lead ing pleasures of boyhood, while early manhood in the bowling-alley, at the billiard table, the horse-race, boat-race, or ball-match, manifests the growth and spread of the same Spirit, and you all know that the hazard of the contest alone soon proves an insufficient excitement, the craving spirit demanding the fresh stimulus of a prize, a bet, or the stakes. Nothing grows so fast, or gives such sure token of its growth, nothing is so unhesitating in its demands, so exorbitant, so unrelenting.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.