Make straight in the desert a highway for our God! 2 Every valley shall be exalted, 3 4 And every mountain and hill shall be made low: And the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together: For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.The voice said, Cry! And he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass, And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth : The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings! get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings! Lift up thy voice with strength; Lift it up, be not afraid; Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! And his arm shall rule for him: Behold! his reward is with him, And his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with his arm, And carry them in his bosom, And shall gently lead those that are with young. 5 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, And meted out heaven with the span, And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, And weighed the mountains in scales, And the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or, being his counselor, hath taught him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed him, And taught him in the path of judgment, And taught him knowledge, 6 And showed to him the way of understanding ? Behold! the nations are as a drop of a bucket, Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? 7 Or what likeness will ye compare unto him ? And the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation He seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have ye not known? have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? 8 Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, Yea-they shall not be sown: 9 Yea-their stock shall not take root in the earth: And He shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, And the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken Me, Or shall I be equal? Saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold! Who hath created these things? That bringeth out their host by number: 10 He calleth them all by names: by the greatness of his might, (for that he is strong in power) Not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O Israel! My way is hid from the Lord, And my judgment is passed over from my God? That the everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, 11 Fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; And to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, Even the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles; They shall run, and not be weary; And they shall walk, and not faint. 1 LESSON CXVI. Pernicious Effects of Gaming. -Потт. I KNOW you do not mean to gamble, nor to advocate gaming. But I also know if you play at all, you will ultimately do both. It is but a line that separates between innocence and sin. Whoever fearlessly approaches this line, will soon have crossed it. To keep at a distance, therefore, is the part of wisdom. No man ever made up his mind to consign to perdition his soul at once. No man ever entered the known avenues, which conduct to such an end, with a firm and undaunted step. The brink of ruin is approached with 2 caution, and by imperceptible degrees; and the wretch who now stands fearlessly scoffing there, but yesterday had shrunk back from the tottering cliff, with trembling. Do you wish for illustration? The profligate gamester's unwritten history will furnish it. How inoffensive its commencement, how sudden, and how awful its catastrophe ! Let us review his life. He commences with play, but it is only for amusement. Next he hazards a trifle to give interest, and is surprised when he finds himself a gainer by the hazard. He then 3 ventures, not without misgivings, on a deeper stake. That stake he loses. The loss and the guilt oppress him. He drinks to revive his spirits. His spirits revived, he stakes to retrieve his fortune. Again he is unsuccessful, and again his spirits flag, and again the inebriating cup revives them. Ere he is aware of it, he has become a drunkard; he has become a bankrupt. Resource fails him. His fortune is gone; his character is gone; his tenderness of conscience is gone. God has withdrawn his spirit from him. The demon of de4 spair takes possession of his bosom; reason deserts him. He becomes a maniac; the pistol or the poniard closes the scene, and with a shriek he plunges unlamented into eternity. If an occupation were demanded for the express purpose of perverting the human intellect, and humbling, and degrading, and narrowing-I had almost said annihilating-the soul of man, one more effectual could not be devised, than the one the gamester has already devised and pre-occupied. And the father and mother of a 5 family, who instead of assembling their children in the reading-room, or conducting them to the altar, seat them night after night, beside themselves at the gaming-table, do, so far as this part of their domestic economy is concerned, contribute not only to quench their piety, but also to extinguish their intellect, and convert them into automatons, living mummies, the mere mechanical members of a domestic gambling machine, which, though but little soul is necessary, requires a number of human hands to work it. And if under such 6 a blighting culture, they do not degenerate into a state of mechanical existence, and gradually losing their reason, their taste, their fancy, become incapable of conversation; the fortunate parents may thank the school-house, the church, the library, the society of friends, or some other and less wretched part of their own defective system, for preventing the consummation of so frightful a result. While gaming leaves the mind to languish, it produces its full effect on the passions and on the heart. 7 Here, however, the effect is deleterious. None of the sweet and amiable sympathies, are at the card-table called into action. No throb of ingenuous and philanthropic feeling is excited by this detestable expedient for killing time. Here that mutual amity, that elsewhere subsists, ceases; paternal affection ceases; even that community of feeling that piracy excites, and that binds the very banditti together, has no room to operate; for at this inhospitable board, every man's interest clashes with every man's interest, and every man's 8 hand is literally against every man. The love of mastery, and the love of money are the purest loves, of which the gamester is susceptible. And even the love of mastery, loses all its nobleness, and degenerates into the love of lucre, which ultimately predominates and becomes the ruling passion. Avarice is always base; but the gamester's avarice is doubly so. It is avarice unmixed with any ingredient of magnanimity or mercy. Avarice, that wears not even the guise of public spirit; that claims not 9 even the meagre praise of hoarding up its own hard earnings. On the contrary, it is an avarice, that wholly feeds upon the losses, and only delights itself with the miseries of others. Avarice, that eyes, with covetous desire, whatever is not individually its own; that crouches to throw its fangs over that booty, by which its comrades are enriched. Avarice, that stoops to rob a traveller, that sponges a guest, and that would filch the very dust from the pocket of a friend. But, though avarice predominates, other related pas10 sions are called into action. The bosom, that was once serene and tranquil, becomes habitually perturbed. Envy rankles; jealousy corrodes; anger rages, and hope and fear alternately convulse the system. The mildest disposition grows morose; the sweetest temper becomes fierce and fiery, and all the once amiable features of the heart assume a malignant aspect! I do not say that such are the uniform, but I do say, that such are the natural and legitimate effects of gaming. The love of play is a Demon, which only takes 11 possession, as it kills the heart. Will nature long survive in bosoms invaded, not by gaming only, but also by debauchery and drunkenness, those Sister Furies, |