Secret Band of Brothers | Page 3

To the preceding queries I will briefly reply.
First, There has been no period in my life, prior to 1846, when I could dare to lay before the world what I contemplate doing at the present time. It will be long remembered by many, that in August, 1842, I renounced a profession, in which I had worse than squandered twelve years, the sweet morning of my life. In doing so, I knew I must, of necessity, experience deep mortification, in a personal exposure, which would attend me through life.
Gambling, with all its concomitants, had taken full possession of my depraved nature. Thus it was that I, like all wicked men, refused to "come to the light," and I feared to oppose a craft so numerous as the one of which I was a professed member. Well did I know that I was carrying out a wrong and wicked principle. Conviction produced reflection. After a careful deliberation of the whole subject, I declared with a solemn oath, that, by the assistance of Almighty God, I would renounce for ever a profession so ruinous in its every feature. Immediately I felt the band severed, and my misgivings were scattered to the winds. My former companions laughed at me. They scouted the idea, that one so base as I should ever think of reformation. It moved me not. My credit, I found, failed, after it was known that I had quit gambling. A thousand different conjectures attended so strange a proceeding on the part of one in my circumstances. Why should I abandon card-playing, destroy valuable card plates, and lose their still more profitable proceeds, return moneyed obligations, which would have secured me an independent fortune? These things were a matter of surprise with the cool and deliberate patrons of vice, and especially with many, who, though they were often covered with a garb of outward morality, were full of rottenness within. Some, who pass for moral and religious persons, have in this thing exhibited a moral obliquity that has often astonished me.
From a careful examination, I have learned the lamentable fact, that the most prominent opposers of moral reforms are composed of two classes, THE HARDENED SINNER, who makes money his god, and THE EXTREMELY IGNORANT. Let not the reader understand, however, that I suppose there are not ignorant rich men as well as poor--the latter have their share of bad men, and so also have the former--but that vice and ignorance are common to both.
In the year 1843, I commenced lecturing against the fearful vice of gambling, for no other reason than to stay the gambler in his ruinous course, and save the youth of our land from his alluring wiles. For this I received IN PUBLIC the "God speeds" of ALL classes, and the prayers of all Christians in secret. I soon learned I had much with which to contend--opposition from directions I little anticipated. The gambler, unfortunate man! he carried upon his countenance an expression of open hate, indicating a deadly hostility to my reformatory movements. The ignorant man, I found, was disposed to make his avarice the highway to happiness. He was unwilling to favour any reform that would invade the territory of his contracted selfishness. His reply, if he had any, would be that stereotyped one, "such a course will have a tendency to make more gamblers than it will cure." If his reasons were asked for such a statement, you could get no satisfactory answer. Perhaps he would say, "I am satisfied of the fact from my own disposition." He might as well give a child's reason at once, and say, "CAUSE!" Such persons have seldom heard a lecture, or read a syllable, and yet are always prating with a great show of wisdom, but rather, in fact, of blind conceit. Their silence would be of far more service to the cause of virtue than their opinions. In many cases, it will be found that such persons are not only ignorant, but dishonest.
Again, there is the rich, moral, or religious man, who takes another position. He opposes with the declaration "his sons will not gamble: they have such good and moral examples," &c. This is sometimes a want of consideration, that prompts them thus to speak; with others, a secret villany, driving them to such ultra positions, a mere tattered garment to cover their own moral deformity. They must oppose the reformation, or be held up to public disgrace. In nine cases out of ten, the opposer of this class, is, or has been, a participant in the works of darkness whose exposition he so much dreads.
Finding many disposed to act thus, and to teach their children to imitate their own pernicious examples, I have made it a study to demolish, if possible, the foundation of their