EPlSTLEb TO STUDENTS. 6i 



sent itself in a tiifilTcnl light, if wc take into consideration what is in- 

 volved in it. It takes, or it aims to take the property of a fellow-being 

 without rendering him an equivalent. It is a violation of the law of re- 

 ciprocity. It cannot be reconciled with fidelity to that precept of the 

 decalogue which says ^'- thou shalt not steal. ''^ It is lumted down by 

 the legislation of every country whose moral standard is right, prohibited 

 in many lands by enactments sanctioned by powerful penalties. It is 

 scouted from society by the virtuous and good. The estimate made 

 of it by all sound ethical writers is well expressed in the following ci- 

 tation from an eminent Scotch moralist: " The Gambler, therefore, is 

 guilty of a direct violation of the law of God, in plundering the pro- 

 perty of others, and reducing them to poverty and wretchedness ; and 

 proves himself by such conduct to be void of piety, benevolence, or 

 humanity. Me is a source of evil by his example, as well as by his 

 actions; a corrupter of youth, stealing from them not their property 

 only, but what is infinitely more valuable, their virtue and their happi- 

 ness ; and doing all in his power to prevent their retreat from the road 

 that inevitably leads to present and eternal ruin. Gambling — to what 

 extent of criminality and misery does it not lead its votaries ? It opens 

 up a way into the hearts of those who come fully within its influence, 

 to the fiends of hell, to take up their abode and hurry them along to 

 crimes of darker and still darker hue — to robbery and murder, — till at 

 length the earthly course of guilt is often terminated by suicide,and the 

 liberated spirit, utterly depraved, becomes the eternal associate of spir- 

 its as wretched and hopeless in depravity as itself. How much would 

 be gained to the high interests of man, were this source of moral waste 

 and destruction, which has turned many a youth originally generous:, 

 into an unfeeling seducer, a cruel and relentless oppressor, a fraudulent 

 member of society, a remorseless assassin, a sclf-tormentcd and misera- 

 ble suicide, entirely removed from our land and still more severely de- 

 nounced by the strongest prohibitions and penalties of law. " 



In view of these most terrible results, not in the least exaggerated, 

 your College imposes upon you, in great kindness, obligations carefully 

 to abstain from every species of gambling. There would be a criminal 

 neglect of your best interests if you were not guarded with all the vig- 

 ilance that can be exerted against the formation of a habit so pernicious. 

 With the oath prescribed bound upon your souls and aided by the relig- 

 ious and moral truth presented to you from time to time, the hope is en- 

 tertained that you will go forth from her enclosures and pass away from 

 her courts, untarnished by this foul oflence. She cannot connive at in- 

 fractions of her regulations on so important a point, and any severity 



