On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
is often represented , does not deserve all the opprobrium that is cast upon it , nor ought it to be deprived of the small advantages that follow in its train .
We have been told that cards were invented by an mgenioui . courtier , to amuse the vacant hours of a foolish king of France ,. Be it so . It matters little whence the origin is dated ; it matters much more what is the tendency of any employment of our time . I am a dissenting minister , but have not all my lifetime been confined to the narrow circle pf a country congregate tion . My observation of mankind has been a little wider ; and the whole of it leads me to believe that if truth in every form ^
. and with relation to every object , were plainly stated and firmly supported , genuine religion , and that which best answers the true end of civilized society ( which I firmly believe to be the case with unadulterated Christianity ) would be better relished
and more widely spread than at present it is . Your correspondent , who signs himself P . Q ,. would not have a dissenting mi- * nister employ any of his time at the card-table ; and he argues upon this subject as unhappily most people do when they have a mind to cry down a practice that does not accord with their inclinations , or with the habits their education has led them to
form . He argues from the abuse of the thing . Some people cannot play at cards , and would therefore fain prevent others from playing . Some have been taught to call them the devi ] r s
books , and of course to shun their company , as they would the company of their master . It appears they areof a much later date than is the palace of Pandanaonium , according to Mikon ; and though in some respects the court in which they originated has been deemed little better in point of morals than was the
pourt of Satan , yet I trust Christian candour will not attribute to their unknown inventor a thousandth part of the misery of which they have been the cause : and , alas ! Sir , where is the book which contains any thing worth man ' s looking into , that has not occasioned evil enough in the world to make some men abuse and curse it ? Where is the employment which , when it has been undertaken by a mind fired with an evil disposition .
has not occasioned anger , rage , and fury , war , devastation , and ruin I Shall we exclude from this tremendous charge the most venerable , the most estimable of volumes ? We cannot : but nevertheless we hug it to our bosoms as the best treasure of man , and learn to ascribe the abvise of what might have been useful ^ of what on no consideration ought to have been injurious , to the hasty and violent passions of men , that are ^ capable of converting a paradise into a hell . But , says your Exeter friend , * is it worthy of your holy faction to becopie the associate qf the prpfkns and worthier
Untitled Article
On Dissenting Ministers playing at Cards * 64 S
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 645, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/29/
-