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
purity of these square pieces of ivory with black spots upoa them , that ( hey are to be privileged above the paper with black and red spots ? " The only difference I know between the two different methods of passing away an idle or an innocent hour is this : in backgammon , almost all -depetKls-\ ipon chance , and therefore it is less worthy the attention
of a thinking man ; but at cards , and particularly at whist , a great deal depends on skilly and while a man is engaged in it , his rational faculties are on the stretch , and his mind accustomed and obliged to think . Your correspondent ' s argument seems to avow that a
dissenting minister cannot play at cards without coveting fais neighbour ' s goods . I grant that he cannot be indifferent whether he win or lose ; but really it is enough to make one laugh , when it is seriously argued , that a man playing two-penny or
six-penny points ( as high , I believe , as it is common for any except professed gamesters to play ) is guilty of a breach of the ienth commandment . It is well known , Sir , tha't a man map play half the year without being the gainer or loser of a crown , provided his stake be regular , and his company usually the same ; and that man is not a rational man , and therefore not fit to be the teacher of the Christian system , who suffers his feelings to be agitated by the loss of a sixpence .
Our attention is next arrested by a sudden address to the passions . < c Prayer and the card-table—what an association !" No , Sir ; they are not associated I grant ; and there are many other things in the life of a Christian , which it is intended he should engage in , which nevertheless are not properly associated with prayer . But we are not to be always praying , nor are they to be deemed unobservant of the Christian statutes who sometimes engage in an amusement which the Scriptures da
not authorise by name . In short , your correspondent argues throughout bis piece upon the grand and palpable abuse of this species of social amusement , I would not have a minister of the gospel altogether a 44 r Sunday man . " I would not have him think nothing of his religion except when earning the wages of his office , and
give into all the gaieties * of life ^ and join all the dissolute company that meets to kill time : neither would I have him marked out as an object different from his fellows . If religion is once
supposed to belong to the priest more than to the people ^ depend upon it the people will be ready enough to excuse themselves on the principle that they are not priests . We find that they do so , and that through this very means itmeh evil lias prevailed in the world . Let the minister intermix in the world as one destined equally with the rqst lo enjoy it . Let him
Untitled Article
On Dissenting Ministers playing at Cards . 6 $ 1
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 647, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/31/
-