A communication, by “Erskine,” with the above heading, which appeared in your issue of December 7th, has filled me, as I doubt not it has the minds of many of your readers, with sorrow. Whatever the object of the writer may have been, the article will not serve any other purpose than that of palliating the vice of gambling—a vice, as the author of the communication confesses, “of no ordinary magnitude.” He wishes to see gambling promptly and finally suppressed, and what means does he use to further this important result? He uses scarcely any language but what will inevitably serve to encourage those who commit this vice to prosecute their ruinous career. He cites, for their gratification, what he alleges are Scriptural and Apostolical examples. He tells them that “before the flood,” Chance was a god at whose altar millions worshipped, and that when Barsabas and Matthias, as recorded in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, found themselves rival aspirants for a vacant Apostleship, “they resolved to gamble for it, and that Matthias won it.” Now, to say nothing of the unhappy manner in which the latter part of the extract was penned, let me ask “Erskine” where he found out that any species of gambling prevailed before the flood? Who or what is his authority for the statement? The Bible says nothing on the subject, never mentions a single individual of that period as having anything to do with games of chance. If the Bible is silent on the subject, one is entirely at a loss to know whence the writer of this article got his information, for there is no other authentic history of the Antideluvian era, or, indeed, any history at all. If the assertion could have been proven, and the fact established, the period was certainly a most unfortunate one to refer to, for “Erskine,” who admits the immorality of gambling, might very readily have remembered that it was on account of the vices of the men of that time that the flood came and swept them away. Who informed the author of the communication in question that Barsabas and Matthias were “rival aspirants” for the vacant Apostleship? The account in Acts, which he quotes, says nothing of their being “aspirants” to the office, says nothing of their being rivals, or desiring the position at all. What is the authority for saying that they resolved to gamble for it? The account does not state that they had anything to do with what was done on the occasion. It does not inform us that these two Disciples were even present at the time referred to. What does he get his information from? If he had examined the narrative, instead of trusting to some vague recollection of it, as he seems to have done, he would have seen that the lot was cast by others. It is evident, from the language, that these two Disciples had nought to do with the act which elevated them to office. They did not gamble for the position, nor did anybody gamble on the occasion, as can be shown by a most simple illustration. When a landed estate is to be divided between (say) three heirs, and into three equal parts, it is a most common thing for three tickets, representing these three portions, to be placed in a common receptacle, and each heir draws out one of those tickets, and takes the part of the land designated by the ticket. This is the modern lot, and corresponds to the ancient lot, in principle, such as was used by the Apostles in the selection of one to fill the vacancy occasioned by the Apostacy and death of Judas, and by the Roman soldiers as to who should have the seamless coat of the crucified Jesus. There was no gambling in the case, no property of one man passing to the hands of another upon a turn of a die, without any equivalent—the circumstance, and almost alone circumstance, which constitutes the essence and vice of gambling.

In further illustration of his idea that gambling will go on, this writer informs us of the “popularity of this practice in high circles,” arguing from this circumstance that the evil has too strong a position to be overthrown. The gentleman might as well have argued the same thing in respect to other evil courses. Mr. Clay and S. S. Prentiss, he tells us, gambled freely, and so did Charles James Fox, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. All of which is true, and some of these men were guilty of other vices also. Mr. Prentiss not only gambled, but was notoriously a dissipated, drinking man, who died before his time, from his excesses. Mr. Fox not only gambled, but kept a mistress, was a rake generally, wore his shirt-bosom all open in a very vulgar, indecent way, and was rarely, as Mr. H. Walpole tells us, purified by ablutions. Were all these things popular in high circles? Did the fact that Mr. Fox committed these things prove that they were popular in high circles? Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan not only was a most reckless gamester, but he habitually drank himself to the most beastly intoxication, and was drowned in debt, and hunted by sheriffs, and trusted by no one, and died man-forsaken, and God-forsaken, and was found dead in a room, not a fit habitation for swine. Were all these things popular in high circles, because Mr. Sheridan who committed them, was, on account of his brilliant talents, admitted to the best society? Is it the sober truth in the case, Mr. Editor, that, “The name of Cassius honors this corruption?”

Or does the corruption dishonor the name of Cassius? Did Charles James Fox enjoy the high moral position of William Pitt who never gambled, and nearly always had Mr. Fox “sub pollice?” Did poor Sheridan, the very sight of whom, we suppose, reminded men of cards, ever occupy the eminence and have the influence of Wilberforce, or George Canning? These men certainly did not attain the weight they would have secured, if they had been free from this vice, and the corruption surely dishonored “the name of Cassius.” The names of the prominent persons mentioned by the writer of the article under consideration did not, could not give dignity or innocence to the practice in question, and there is nothing in the fact that these men were guilty of this vice, to show that this practice cannot be successfully opposed, or will continue to be committed with no important diminution, as long “as grass grows, and water flows.” The argument, to my mind, sir, is wholly destitute of force or even plausibility.

“Erskine” asks, in italics, “when and where was gambling ever put down?” If the gentleman had familiarized himself with the history of gaming, he would have known that the public opinion, of which he speaks slightingly, as rather inclining to the other side, has put an end to female gambling for money. This practice on the part of females is now very rare, not unblushingly committed as it was in the seventeenth century, when it called forth the elegant satire of Joseph Addison. This was no small triumph. But I must ask, when was robbery ever put down thoroughly, or intemperance, or fraud, or slandering, or murder? Shall no true-hearted lover of his kind and country, especially in this infancy of our Confederacy, when all ought to be endeavoring to give a proper mould to its laws and its virtue, shall no virtuous patriot exert himself to put down any vice, because it has not been successfully warred against in days that are gone? Shall you, Mr. Editor, forego, your laudable efforts to give form and color to the destinies of the young Republic, because evils have always existed in free governments? If this argument were fairly carried out would it not strike a death-blow at all reformatory legislation whatsoever?

But men will not tolerate a law forbidding gambling with cards when the gambling of trade is allowed and protected. This is another argument. It almost carries its refutation on its face, from the simple fact that trade lacks the essential feature which constitutes gambling. There is no gaining your neighbor's goods, without giving him an equivalent. You part with goods, and get money. There is merely in the transaction a calculation of probabilities and the laws of trade, which the most comprehensive mind makes by. If a man deceives his neighbor, of course it is a mere case of fraud. But there is no such thing in the case as two men meeting in a room, and one, after the management of some pieces of paper, carrying off the money of the other, without giving him one cent's equivalent. Of course there is exchange or trade cannot exist; but in gambling nothing is given, while the other is deprived of everything. The want of parallelism, between the two cases, is almost too palpable to allow of discussion. This writer is, of course, no gambler, as he tells us so; but he has certainly taken up this plausibility, so often heard among the advocates of this practice, without bestowing on it the analysis which he is evidently capable of giving it. I commend his argument on this point to his reexamination.

The more I read this article, Mr. Editor, the more I am struck with its want of logical coherence and force. “Excitement men must have,” he tells us, and because the minds of men, in accordance with a law of their nature, love and cultivate innocent enthusiasm in the line of sculpture, painting, music, astronomy, poetry, eloquence, etc., therefore, no attempt to curb the indulgence of a guilty and pernicious passion like that of gaming can be expected to be successful. Could any reasoning possibly be more unsound? Ninety-nine men out of every hundred, he informs us, have cultivated “a card enthusiasm,” and it is “a pet passion of the million.” Now, if by “card enthusiasm,” he means a passion for gambling for money; and, by the subsequent language, that gaming for the purposes of gain is “a pet passion of the million,” I must be permitted to doubt the correctness of this estimate of the proportion such persons bear to the community. The present writer has never lived or visited in a community in Virginia, or heard authentically of one, where the proportion of gamesters was greater than that of ten to a hundred, if it was that even. I do not think that there is a neighborhood of gentlemen in Virginia where they would not deem it an insult to have it said of them that ninety-nine out of a hundred of them had cultivated a passion for cards, or, in other words, played cards for money, for we are talking of this, and nothing else. Because of the wide prevalence of this practice, this writer infers that “any law which strikes at the fullest fruition of this pet passion” will be incessantly thwarted and foiled in its execution. Men, he says, “can do it and they will.” This is his position, and yet he winds up his article by recommending a law forbidding gambling, except in certain legalized establishments. Would not a law of this sort strike at the fullest and freest fruition of this passion? If a man must walk or ride, say three miles in a city, to reach a lawful gambling house, and cannot game elsewhere on penalty of going to the penitentiary, or paying a heavy fine, is this no strike at the freest fruition of his passion, and if it is, as it certainly is, how, according to this writer, can his own law be carried out? There is a singular want of logic here, and yet not a more singular one than that exhibited in the proposition which it would seem to be the object of the communication to make, viz: that certain “gambling houses” be licensed, with heavy penalties, &c., to those who game elsewhere.

Let us examine this briefly, and then close this long article. We must legalize gambling, as the French and Germans, with their notoriously low moral tone, have done. We must legalize it, as these two infidel nations of Europe have done, for they are, perhaps, the only two distinctively infidel countries on that continent, and we, in the youth of our nation, or rather infancy, must begin by imitating them. We must follow France, standing as she does on the thin crust of a social volcano, and Germany, the confessed fountain of modern infidelity in religion and morals. By way of giving a healthful moral impetus to the conscience of the young nation, we must walk in these illustrious footsteps. We must legalize “a vice of no ordinary magnitude,” until our fame as gamblers rise out of obscurity, into world-wide notoriety, as these French and Germans have emerged to their bad eminence. If the writer of this proposition had wanted to encumber it with odium, he could not, perhaps, have adopted a more effectual method of doing so, than by telling the readers of the Whig that this law he recommends is a law in Germany and a law in France.

We must “legalize gambling.” We forbid murder, robbery, slander, drunkenness, profane swearing, fraud and other vices, but perhaps we have made a terrible mistake all this while. Certain houses ought to have been regularly qualified by law, in which these crimes could have been committed with legal sanction, and money, too, accrue to the municipal authorities from the proprietors of these establishments. Is not this, Mr. Editor, the first time, in the history of this vice in this country, that it has been proposed to diminish it by making it absolutely a lawful act? Would it not relieve this practice of at least nine-tenths of its odium? Who that reflects a single moment can doubt this? And who that loves this nation would not tremble to see this vice taken under the protection of her laws and governors? Let this thing be done, sir, and steel does not more surely draw the lightning of the skies, than would such an act attract the wrathful curse of the Lord Jehovah.

This writer believes that, if his proposal was adopted, and gambling in unlicensed houses made a felony, the vice would be diminished, and free-born, high-spirited men would no longer be compelled to “slink in and out,” by night, at the back doors of gaming houses. This whole proposition, Mr. Editor, is very summarily, but logically, disposed of. These men, who thus furtively frequent gaming places, do not “slink out and in,” because these houses are unlicensed houses, but principally for the reason that they are “gaming houses.” They do not want to be recognized as gamesters, because it is a disreputable thing. And, although to legalize gaming houses would take away a large share of the odium which adheres to this practice, still any person who should gamble, and at the same time have a sensitive regard to his reputation generally, and as a safe business man more particularly, would yet enter these lawful gaming houses with a stealthy tread, and that after the shades of night have fallen on the earth. Make unlicensed gaming a felony, and you will prevent men from daring to have unlicensed gaming houses. This will deter men from keeping such houses, he tells us, and thus you will diminish gambling. This admission, Mr. Editor, causes the whole proposal to dwindle into nothing, and vanish like vapor before the sun.

I take my leave of the subject, simply remarking, that if men would be deterred from keeping unlicensed gaming houses, by fear of the penalty attached to a felony, they would be deterred from keeping any gaming establishments at all, if the act was by law a felony, to be followed, of course, by its appropriate punishment.

Buchanan, Botetourt County, Va.

Lord Byron it was, I believe, who said, sir, “A man must serve his time to every tradeSave censure—critics are already made;” and after having given to your attempt at a reply in the Whig of Thursday, to my article on the suppression of gambling, in the Whig of the 7th ultimo, an attentive and dispassionate perusal, I regret that I am not able to resist the involuntary conclusion that your brain is pregnant with the idea that you are ordained from on high, to be one of the “ready made”—that it is not to moral reformation, but to an immoral, because a vain glorious pedantry to which you have dedicated your facile pen—that you had rather shine temporarily as a superficial reviewer, than to toil quietly in the moral vinyard as a substantial reformer, and I do sincerely regret that talents such is yours should fall under the blight of such a conceit. Why, sir, gambling itself is not more utterly destructive of all those finer sensibilities indigenous to the genial regions of a generous bosom, than is this self same ill natured propensity for carping criticism. A little ephemeral reputation it may gain for you, “But och! it hardens a' withinAnd pertifies the feeling!”

Some tell days ago, sir, I sent you a communication, in reference to all article, on the “suppression of gambling,” which had appeared in the columns of the Whig, on the 7th ult., over the pseudonym of “Erskine.” I had no desire to be identified particularly with the author of the production in question, and through yourself, any who might feel interested, as the seriousness of the subject was calculated to inspire, simply making the observations of “Erskine” the theme of argumentative criticism. In that article, I was studious to avoid anything which the most sensitive courtesy could forbid. I was, therefore, somewhat surprised to see in a day or so, a letter, followed next day by a second, in the Whig, addressed to W. M. and signed “Erskine,” in which “Erskine” arrayed himself against me, and that certainly not of in the most refined way. Politer terms surely might have been discovered after a very brief search. If “Erskine” is not satisfied with the force of my logic in this matter, he certainly will, in his own mind, admit what ought to have been the power of my example. His impatience, as soon as he read my comments on his argument, was decidedly interesting, as well to others, as to myself, for the simple reason that it caused to pass before the mental eye, the image of a breast sticking full of arrows, not from any particular skill in the archer, but from the breadth, and nearness of the mark. In the two letters, which “Erskine” has addressed to me, he has not succeeded in tugging one of these arrows from his grieved bosom. Although he says in regard to the fine things he writes concerning gamblers: “I do solemnly assure you, it is for that purpose (the purpose of argument and none other, that I have referred to them at all,” it is still most evident, Mr. Editor, that the effect of all this is compliment to gamesters. “Erskine” may say, he does not mean this, and of course I am bound to believe it, as he tells me so, but I am at liberty to remember that there is such a thing as “sinning ignorantly,” and I incline to the opinion that the intelligent readers of the Whig, who were not deterred by the unique and ungracious opening of “Erskine's” letter to me from giving the rest of it a perusal, will be slow to think that there is, at all events, an adequate horror of gambling where the writer has so high an opinion of the colloquial powers, refinement and universal culture or these daily and hourly violators of public law, these main stays of a host of inferior thieves, these very pests of society. Lovers of law and morality do not generally speak in this strain, and when writer addresses the public, recommending a certain measure against any vice, and at the same time uses language concerning its votaries, to which men are not habituated, he is entirely mistaken if he fancies they can be easily reconciled to his proposal. The way of such a reformer is through a hedge of thorns, or if I may change the language, I see “Erskine” assaying to swing against a broad, rapid and expanding channel, and borne away exhausted and terrified towards the cataract of public condemnation. But I must not stay by this abyss.

I did not mean, Mr. Editor, to raise an “immaterial issue” when I asked “Erskine” for the proof of his assertion that, “before the flood, Chance was a God, at whose altar millions worshipped.” I did not care particularly how it might have been, as relates to the argument, not thinking, as “Erskine” did, that antiquity adds anything to the dignity of a vice! I only knew that there was no particle of evidence of gaming having gone on, in the antediluvian era, and simply designed, in calling for his proof, (which, of course, he did not have,) to throw over him, like a mantle, the confession of having made a positive statement, which was entirely without foundation. This was my chief object and “Erskine” is welcome to the result. Of course I did not, have any abstract choice, whether gaming was ancient or modern. If it had been committed prior to the flood, that would have no more been all extenuation of it than such antiquity could diminish the guilt of the violence and bloodshed which, as we are informed, then prevailed. My object was what I have stated it to be, and “Erskine” must not blame me, or the truth-loving readers of the Whig, if we remember that, at least in one instance, he has shown himself capable of making a random assertion—one having its origin in a mere flight of his swift imagination.

It is true, sir, that “Erskine” proves the existence of the Isthmian, Pythean and Olympic games, which no one denied, but the earliest of them had no being for over a thousand years subsequent to the flood. I criticised, with rather all unpleasant effect on the mind of “Erskine,” his positive averment that millions gamed before the flood; and he must now allow me to freshen his classical reminiscences, by calling his attention to a very prominent feature in the ancient games, which was that the prize on the various occasions was, in itself, usually, if not always, worthless. If “Erskine” had read his “Gibbon” or his “Kennett” lately, he would have remembered that a “simple garland” was the tangible prize in the races of the Roman Stadium, though money was very often given to the successful competitor by other persons. The money was not a stake, put up by the competitors themselves, but by admirers of those games, just as a pecuniary prize is now-a-days offered for the best literary work on some specified subject. The prize, however, was a “crown of leaves,” and above and beyond that the supposed “imperishable renown” of the victor in the national games. The money was an incidental thing, a voluntary offering from the by-standers or officers of the games, sometimes given and sometimes not given. Ausonius, as translated by Addison, would have informed “Erskine” to this effect, as, far as the prize of the Grecian games was concerned.

The leafy chaplet, as representing the crown of undying honor, with which the victor was to be rewarded, for his own sake and that of his family for some generations, was the prize in those ancient contests. The money that might be given was not an object in the minds of more noble aspirants. If it had been in any case known to be the absorbing object of the successful contestant, when we reflect on the high ideas the ancients had of the glories of these games, it is likely that the judges would have refuted to have crowned such an one, as unworthy, in consequence of the low motive that impelled him. That betting took place among the outsiders, of course, is probable, as “Erskine” tells us. Indeed, I can inform “Erskine” of what he evidently does not know, which is, that there were games of chance certainly about the Christian era, and that money was put up, as now, by the gamesters. He did not know this, else he would have given it as an authoritative fact, instead of relying on unfounded assertions in reference to the national games. If “Erskine” was really versed in the literature of this subject as well as he seems to be in the Arcana of those unhappy men, the gamesters of the present day, he would surely have given his readers the benefit of the significant line of Perseus, as translated by Dryden, “To shun Amez-Ace that swept my stakes away.”

I have vindicated the National Games of Antiquity, Mr. Editor, front the misconceptions of the author of these letters to me, and, while I inform him of the actual gaming, of a remote period, must take occasion to express my moral disapprobation of these practices—a disapprobation he has not avowed in reference to the alleged gambling of the public games in Italy and Greece. I condemn such things wherever found, whatever called, do not consider them “the legitimate offspring of human passions,” as he does, but the most veritable bastards of fallen humanity, and, like other illegitimates, laboring under the ban of the virtuous and pure in every land and in every age. Acknowledging, as every one acquainted with history must do, that gaming for money had a right ancient origin, I must insist on the idea that the antiquity of the vice is no vindication of it, more than it is of any other immorality, and will only remind this writer that it was when the children of Israel, in the desert, “sat down to eat and drink, (at their idolatrous feast,) and rose up to play,” (probably game,) that the Most High said to Moses, “this is a stiff-necked people, let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them.”

“Erskine,” I think, may be satisfactorily disposed of, by a few, calm observations on his other points. He insists on it, that Matthias and Barsabas gambled for the vacant Apostleship, and, in the game paragraph, speaks of gambling as “a vice of no ordinary magnitude.” Were these disciples of Jesus guilty of an immorality of “no ordinary magnitude.” Will “Erskine” tell his Christian readers this? Solomon tells us that “the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” Is the Lord, then, accessory to “a vice of no ordinary magnitude?" If not, then, the lot and gambling are not the same thing. Apart from this consideration, I assert that they did not thus gamble, and it seems to be the result of unreflection to make up one's mind to say that they did. How could there be gaining where neither lost anything that he had previously possessed? Could men ever make anything out of each other, by this kind of gambling? This writer says the parties, each, risked his claim, but does he not see that the claim is practically a thing of naught, until after the decision of the lot? Nobody had anything to lose, and the evil of gambling lies in the fact, that one loses perhaps his all, without anything whatever in the shape of an equivalent. What “Erskine” calls a “claim,” is in reality not a claim, because there is neither possession or ownership in the case. The ownership, or real claim, can only be established by the lot. He says, the chance of getting something is risked, and that judges have decided that “a chance” is a reality. But he must discriminate between this last kind of “chance” and the gaming “chance.” “Erskine” knows that the lawmakers and judges decide in the matter of gaming that this “chance” is practically nothing. This is the essential foundation of the law. The doctrine of the law is, that except in matters of charity, or “gifts in fee simple,” property shall not pass from one man's hand to another's without some return for the reason that the principle is intrinsically vicious. If I exchange merchandise for money, with my neighbor, there is a chance that each may make by the operation, or if money is paid for doubtful paper, the courts will determine that “the chance” is a reality, because the paper may bring something. But if a gambler puts another man's money into his pocket, leaving him penniless, what chance is there that the losing man will make anything by the transaction? In trade both parties may be benefitted. In gaming only one can be. This is the philosophy of the vice of gambling, the theory of the laws against gambling, and however “Erskine” may deceive his own mind, I think, if he, deeming it as he does a vice of no ordinary dimensions, will analyze his thoughts, he will find, that so far from this risked chance mitigating the offence, the whole guilt of the crime, does, in a circle of fire, flash, and play around this very point, this chance, which is not a chance.

“Erskine” complains that I misunderstand him in his allusions to Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan and others. How is this, sir? He said plainly enough that the gaming of these men showed it to be popular in the best circles, and therefore it would be almost, if not wholly impossible seriously to diminish it. I said, in reply, that the fact of the commission of this vice by these persons no more proved it to be popular in high circles than the practice of other vices by these men proved them to be popular and difficult to be overcome. What other treatment could an opponent give to so transparent a fallacy? And how have I misconstrued the writer? It would require a more plausible pen than his to show any misconstruction whatever; and he must support the weight which the refutation of his argument throws on him as well as he can.

In my letter to you, sir, I had spoken of the power of public opinion, as against gaming, and said that it had been signally shown, by the almost entire extinction or female gambling. I referred to the scathing diatribes of Addison as helping to give birth and body to this effective public sentiment. But “Erskine,” with a sharpness which your readers will be at a loss to appreciate, sees something “literally astounding” in this. He points us to Germany, and to Continental Europe generally, to show that females still game fearfully, and also to a lady's roulette room at Saratoga Springs, this latter accompanied by the very additional circumstance of being “kept by a man whose name was Grindle!” Does that refute my statement? When I spoke of Addison, and of English opinion, as moulded by his writings, did any reader of the Whig, except “Erskine,” imagine that I was extending this influence to Germany, where a different language is used and a different type of civilization obtains? I think not. Doubtless I was understood to mean Anglo-Saxon Christendom, including America. I did mean it, and the fact was as I have stated it to be. Gaming is not now a vice among the ladies of England as it was in former days; nor is it a vice of the ladies of the Confederate States. And notwithstanding this roulette-room for females at Saratoga, there is no evidence that gaming is a general thing, even among Northern women, far as we hold Northern society to be from representing Anglo-American civilization. “Erskine” tells the readers of the Whig, that in Baden-Baden, females gamble, and if I may use his figure, “fight the tiger like wild-cats.” But did he not see the deep into which he was plunging when he gave this information? It will be quite pleasant to all to remember that this Baden-Baden, where so odious a social evil exists, is in Germany, where gaming-houses are established by law, the very institution “Erskine” wishes to see in this State of Virginia. Does he not think that Richmond, where gambling houses are forbidden by law, will compare very favorably with Baden-Baden, where they are established by law? Do revolting and heart-sickening scenes like those described by “Kirwan” and Madam Le Vert, as occurring among females in the a lawful gaming-houses in Baden, ever transpire in Richmond, where such places are not tolerated by statute? Of course such an assertion will not be made. Leaving “Erskine,” therefore, to brood over the mishap resulting from his citation, and wishing him greater foresight in future, I pass to another objection.

I endeavored, in my letter of January 9th, to discredit the proposed law advocated by “Erskine,” by reminding your readers that Germany and France were infidel nations. This, of course, was legitimate and natural, but the author of these unique letters to me denies most stoutly that these nations, who take the initiative in passing a law of the kind in question, are infidel in their character. I did not suppose this would be controverted by any one, and remark now, that if the French nation, which takes into its bosom such theological vipers as Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert and Cousin, delighting to honor them, and then periodically drenching itself with human blood, proclaim, “death is an eternal sleep!” if such a people are not practically as well as theoretically infidel, it will be difficult to determine infidelity. And if Germany, furnishing the literary works, whence French infidels, Westminster Reviewers and Boston free-thinkers draw their blasphemous stores, is not as infidel a nation as any people within the limits of professed Christendom ever could be, it will appear still more difficult to decide what infidelity is. I must not, however, discuss this matter further, but willingly leave it to your readers. As for this writer's taunt, that these infidel people will compel the payment of a gambling debt, while Christian nations will not, I have only to say that if France and Germany choose to take their thieving vampires, the gamesters, under especial State protection, by securing their ill-gotten gains to them, they are not injuring any one but themselves, and if “Erskine” really wishes to see this evil diminished, he ought to be pleased to have it encompassed by as many barriers and perils as possible. Having reached the end of the gentleman's first letter, I must close, promising tomorrow to look at the second, as decidedly the most striking of the two.

The second letter of “Erskine” opens with the singular, though not seriously meant, intimation, that I am favorable to the gamblers, but as he retracts this at once, I will look immediately at his declaration that the gamblers were favorable to my plan, and against his. And first let me say that if “Erskine” heard them express themselves as thus friendly to my proposal, of course I am bound to believe him, but if he did not, himself, hear their words, I am afraid he is speaking from some such information as he had, when he stated, positively, that “before the flood Chance was a god at whose feet millions worshipped.” His friends have, soothed him by telling him this, and by believing them, he has exhibited a credulity, only equalled by his vacancy of logic. His friends could not have heard the gamblers express themselves so repeatedly in my favor, because “Erskine's” associates cannot be the associates of gamesters, to hear them speak so much on one subject. “Erskine” himself certainly would not go among them to listen to their speeches. His unpopularity among them, of which he tells us, would certainly prevent their unburdening themselves in his presence, and thus furnishing him with an argument against them. If they did express themselves as against legal gaming houses, is it impossible, either in Richmond or New Orleans, that such men, in order to gain their object, should have made opposition to the plan? Are they incapable of such a ruse? No one can think that they are. Nothing is more easy than such a supposition. If they were opposed to such a law in New Orleans, what is more natural, when they did keep their 110 establishments without paying any tax? On these grounds I suspect that the real preference of the gamblers for my plan over his is somewhat of the nature of an hypothesis which would be good, if true, but not being a sound one, is nothing worth. How, indeed, Mr. Editor, can these unhappy men be favorable to the law, which I would have passed in regard to them? It would not allow any public gaming house for them to frequent, and if they gamed in such establishments as now exist, they would be sent to the Penitentiary. Pass a law making gambling, anywhere, a felony, and instead of these men paying, as they now do, a fine, some years' incarceration would be the penalty. Could anything be more obvious, than the proposition, that the severer the punishment, the greater the probability that men will be deterred from the commission of the unlawful act? “Erskine's” law would open houses, where all gamblers can go, and game freely. The law I recommend would shut up all the gambling dens in the State, on pain of the State prison, for a term of years, if kept in any manner. What is there in this prospect so very pleasing to gamesters? What can gamblers want with a law which, instead of inflicting a pecuniary mulct, as now, would deprive them of personal liberty for a protracted period? As for the lower class of these pestilential knaves whose trade “Erskine” would legalize, does he really believe, is he so little acquainted with this world, and the history of courts and licenses &c., as to believe that these men could not unite (say a number of them) and pay the tax, requisite to keeping one of his lawful gaming places, or to believe that the worst men in the community cannot get somebody to go their security? A number of men, forming a company, carry on the legalized gambling houses in Baden-Baden, why could not a company of gamesters, even of the worst sort, open and pay the tax on a lawful gaming place in Richmond? Why could not these vast numbers of gamesters found in the land, if their foul work is made lawful, form companies, pay the tax, and fill the purlieus of Richmond with their vile houses, while the wealthier robbers have more elegant “hells” on Main Street, and Broad? Why does not “Erskine” tremble at such a thought, and grow pale at such a prospect, instead of devoting himself as he now does, to the promotion of so terrific an object? As to the belief of this writer, if gaming is licensed, the practice will become conscientious, and we shall see a new generation of honest gamblers who would not cheat for the world, the idea simply excites wonder. Does “Erskine” really know what kind of a world he is in? Has he read the account of the “German Hells” in the Whig of January 15th? As soon as one reads this argument for lawful gambling houses, and thinks of “Erskine” embarking in his enterprise, with this idea, he is reminded at once of the band in Jerusalem who joined the ill-fated Absalom, and went forth “in their simplicity, and knew not anything.”

But, Mr. Editor, we have been made acquainted with some fascinating characters, in the form of gamblers, by the author of these letters to me; men of rare genius, literary culture, fine address, and colloquial powers, that would enable them to adorn any society, however refined. They are liberal men, too, give to the poor, to the war, and to churches. They are tenderhearted men also, fond of drying up other people's tears, and walk lovingly among the woes and sorrows of this earthly vale. They are persons of fine moral influence, men of salutary tendencies of various kinds. These are the obstacles which “Erskine” tells me stand in the path of all who would make successful war against this dark fraternity, the gamesters. He seems to have a genuine admiration for these wonderful individuals, who have so many alluring qualities. He should remember that, by all these attractions and arts, these men simply make their victims the more numerous and unsuspecting. These shining accomplishments are a part of the instruments these persons use in carrying on their work of ruin. Has “Erskine” forgotten the pithy saying of Lord Baron, concerning the gamester, that “the greater master he is in his art, the worse man he is”? Has he forgotten the gamester Mr. Law described, the slippery man, who ran away with a lady's daughter, “a man of great beauty, who in dressing and dancing has no superior”? Has he forgotten the elegant “Charles Price,” the forger, who played the gentleman so well, and preyed on his fellow men through a long life, and at last to escape his mental agony and shame, hung himself in Tothill prison? Did Price's superior manners redeem him from the execration of his countrymen? If “Erskine” is a lawyer, does he not know that the law, which is the “perfection of reason,” gives a man no credit for his accomplishments, if he be a violator of the law? Has he never read of that capital fellow, Isaac Dumas of Oxfordshire? He sung his song well, told a good story, was apt at a sentiment, drank freely, so that at the clubs of the day—who but he! The ladies, of course, occupied his attention, and he became so great a favorite, that he took to the road to consolidate his ascendancy—for he was generous. He would have done very well to rank among the worthies mentioned by “Erskine,” but the men of Oxford hung him up by his neck, agreeable as he was. I can commend “Dumas'” history to “Erskine's” meditations. He has read the great poet, let him peruse Gloster's soliloquy: “Why I can smile, and murder, while I smile;And cry content, to that which grieves my heart;And wet my checks with artificial tears,And frame my face to all occasions.I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;I'll play the orator is well as Nestor,Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,And, like a Simon, take another Troy.I can add colors to the Chameleon;Change shapes with Proteous, for advantage,And set the Murd'rous Machiavel to school,Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?”

Such ethereal, polished enemies of their race, sir, have not unfrequently been seen in this world of ours. These beautiful leopards, with their shining spots and silken coat, have often roamed the earth without a cage, and there ever have been some men, who thought they were too pretty and graceful in their motions to be put within bars, or anywise hindered in their fearful roamings. They were so pleasant—with all the blood around each mouth and dripping from their claws. “Erskine” ought to indulge in no laudatory language of these mortal foes of wives and cradled babes, and aged, palsied mothers, whose husbands, fathers and sons are in the jaws of these monsters, crunched to death. The shining qualities of such beings, used as they are to aid their ruinous emprise, become glistening vices, and men should hate their very forms and shadows with a mortal hatred. “Erskine” quotes from the Bible now and then, as he goes upon his way, in his letters. Does he find anything in the sermons or conversations of the Saviour of the world like an eulogy of the vicious, even for the sake of argument? Have gentlemanly manners in gamesters, here and there, anything worthy of a moment's thought, when men are discussing the methods of checking the depredations of these sleek savages—“these wolves in sheep's clothing?” I know “Erskine” does not consider himself the apologist for gamblers; but, when he descants on the superior virtues of members of this heaven-cursed company, does not every gamester feel that he may be virtuous and a gamester still? Does not every youth, who reads his lucubrations, take into his mind the thought he may game to his heart's content, and yet be a “thorough gentleman,” “stand high in private and public confidence,” and be in benevolence a philanthropist, and in his munificence a prince? Who does not see that the effect of this is and must be evil, and only evil? How closely does this resemble the course described in Scripture of the man who “scatters firebrands, arrows and death,” and of him “who leadeth his neighbor astray, and saith, am not I in sport?” When “Erskine” tells gamblers that members of their foul craft have been men of almost every virtue under heaven, (does this not satisfy such persons that a gambler is not necessarily an immoral man; that he is not immoral simply because he is a gamester? When this writer tells these men that Apostles gambled, can he expect them to desire superior virtue to the Apostles; or that the young men, whose fate in this thing, at this moment, is, perhaps, balanced on a needle's point, will not be content to game deeply, if they think they shall be no worse than Apostles? If “Erskine” is, indeed, a lover of the public virtue and happiness, he ought surely to weigh well his words, lest he should bring into being results at which his very heart would turn sick. He speaks of his sons; he would be wise, perhaps, to remember that, in teaching such a doctrine, in regard to inspired Apostles, he may be sowing in the minds of those sons seeds which shall spring up and grow into a harvest of woe for them and him.

What is the meaning, Mr. Editor, of all this parade about the liberality of gamblers; the gentleman tells me, that these men give thousands of dollars to individuals and to churches. Would he receive from any man, for a gift at Christmas, money made out of “a vice of no ordinary magnitude”? If “Erskine” has a passion for building churches, would he receive assistance, from such men, to pay for their erection? I think, sir, it would evince, in any one, a very great ignorance of the laws of Providence, to expect a heavenly blessing, on a church edifice, built with in-gotten gains, its every stone cemented with the tears and blood of the widow and the fatherless. I will do “Erskine” the credit to suppose, that, on reflection, he would not receive this cankered gold, even from the lilly hand of the finest of these murderers. The liberality of gamblers! In one very obvious sense, sir, this seeming virtue is the fruit of the life-long vice of the individual who shows it. “The substance of the diligent, (says Solomon) is precious,” that is, the working man, knows the value of money because he has toiled hard to procure it. Such a man deals wisely with his means, either giving or retaining them prudently. But the gamester secures his gold without toil, fills his coffers, out of what he calls “play,” and therefore will be more likely to part with money easily, whether wisely or unwisely. His apparent excellence is the offspring of a real vice. I mean in very considerable measure. If there is any true generosity, in the heart of such a man, it is a puzzling problem to reconcile it with the rest of his character. Half the time, if not more, liberality in such men is the mere effect of a desire to impress others with the idea, that the donors are good, kind fellows, who do not care for money and would not defraud a person, no, not on any account. Indeed, they would help a poor man, instead of injuring him. The deed of charity is with them, in a large number of cases, a mere intended offset to the general cruelty of their ingenuous lives. If this man “Prindle” in Savannah, mentioned by “Erskine” would have “dried every tear” “in this vale of tears” if he could, why did he go on in a life which caused so many tears to be streaming down the scalded cheeks of misery? Why did he pass his whole career in opening the fountains of mothers' and children's sorrow, and unlocking the chambers of their groans? But I must not dwell, Mr. Editor, on this pernicious idea any longer.

“Erskine” tell us, that such men stand in the path of my argument; that a gambler in Richmond, one in Savannah, and, one who graduated some years ago at a university, very wonderful men, in his view, these occasionally found men, these scattered wrecks of human nature, stand in the highway of reform. Indeed, sir! If Richmond policemen can force their way into the polluted chambers of the gamester, and put these grand gentlemen to flight, through back-doors and small windows, will it be so impossible a thing to repress this evil, and keep it low, as you do my other vice? Detectives in your city have brought the instruments of the black art of these criminals, into the courts, and showed them before all men. They have in some cases brought their persons, and upright, brave judges, either have disposed of their cases, or shortly will do so, punishing them as they most richly deserve. There is nothing difficult in the supposition, that more stringent enactments might be passed against them, and determined officers be found to arrest them, and resolute juries to convict them, and men on the bench, the purity of whose ermine would not be sullied, by attempts to let such offenders escape through the meshes of the law. The noble and true men of Virginia, nine-tenths of whom condemn this practice, can rise in their might, and demand the passage of such laws as shall drive these men out of the land, to Germany or to France, where they can make their blood-red bread, with none, for a moment, to hinder or make them afraid. Let the public imagination of Virginia be put in full possession of all the hateful features and sad terrors of this work of darkness; let the people become keenly and thoroughly aroused to the enormities of this thing; let ministers, and editors, and orators at the bar turn it, on every side, that men may see its hideous, devilish shape, and disgusting proportions; pass laws making it a felony and then we shall see who will be allowed to stand in the path of justice and of power. If A., under “Erskine's” plan of legal gaming houses, would be deterred from the crime by fear of a felon's cell, why should not A. and B. and C., and all men be restrained from the commission of the offence by dread of the same penalty, if there were no gaming houses protected by law? High position or personal gifts afford no reliable security to the violators of their nation's laws, and they know it. They would respect the majesty of the law, or they would be made to fall before it. The accomplished and popular William Dodd, perishing on a scaffold, though the first men in England tried to save him, and Lord Ferrars, going from his castle to a gibbet, and others like them, may remind “Erskine” that men “surrounded by a host of friends” cannot always, with impunity, trample on their country's will. I believe, Mr. Editor, no better law, than such an one as I have now spoken of could be devised. It may be sharp, but many diseases require the knife and this is one of them. I believe with equal conviction that “Erskine” proposal is the most unwise that could possibly be made. I incline to think it meets the reprobation of nearly every lover of virtue and public happiness, and trust the Legislature, at a time when so much depends on their wisdom and firmness, will display an elevation of mind and heart, worthy of its past days, and show this scheme no favor, none whatever. Let it, in a mad hour, be adopted, and not only will gambling be mightily increased, but that being the parent of many other crimes, every sluice of iniquity will fly open, and every vice rush unfettered and uncontrolled through the land.

“Erskine” says in his last letter, that he will not answer one argument of mine, as he chooses to call it, viz : an alleged objection to his scheme, to the effect, that if gaming houses are licensed, heavily taxed, and, therefore, few in number, it would be a restriction on men's liberty, as on account of the distance they would have to go, to reach a lawful gaming house, they would be put to much inconvenience. He represents me as bringing this forward as an argument against his plan. I offered no such objection. If “Erskine” read, and thought carefully on what I said, he must have seen that I only mentioned that such would be the case, in order to show one of his arguments to be self-contradictory. He had said that “any law which strikes at the fullest and freest fruition of a pet passion of the million is bound to arouse the combative propensities of the masses, and they will eternally thwart and foil its execution.” This was his assertion, and then he proposes a law, which he says will check this vice most sensibly; yes, “achieve a Solferino victory over gaming.” When I was looking at this part of his article, I saw of course the glaring inconsistency of the two things and simply pointed it out. I asked him, how this law of his, which he says would cause the gaming houses to be few, and therefore remote from vast numbers, how a law so inconvenient, and hampering to the “pet passion of the million ” could be carried out, seeing he had said the masses would “eternally thwart and foil” such a law? He writes as if I were objecting to this restraint on men's liberty, whereas my article showed him, that I wanted the penalty of a felony to hang over the head of every man who gambles. I would like to see barriers of every kind erected around this vice, and merely alluded to “Erskine's” proposed restriction of a vice which he said could not be restrained, in order to exhibit the want of logic which his recommendation involved. This was all, sir. And “Erskine's” failure to notice the true issue doubtless had its natural effect on the minds of his readers. It showed them a consciousness, on his part, that the various ideas he has on this subject are not joined in a chain which none may break.

“Erskine's” last complaint, that one kind of gambling, viz: with cards, is denounced and forbidden, while various other sorts—betting, lotteries, etc.—are allowed, I have nothing to do with. The inconsistency is in the laws of the land, not in my position. The discrimination in favor of betting, etc., is doubtless owing to the fact that these are not such formidable evils as the other; but, if my power were equal to my wishes, they would all be abolished as immoral, often ruinous, and discreditable to any individuals, companies, or especially Churches, that engage in them. “Erskine's” inquiry, which he puts to me, in reference to the fatal effects of ardent spirits, and his taking for granted that I favor the licensing of the drinking houses of the land, is of a piece with many other parts of his letters. My article of the 9th had nothing in it to raise so dark a suspicion. One would have supposed that this writer's recent Antediluvian experience would not have been so soon forgotten. The great barrister, sir, whose name “Erskine” has so innocently taken, that eloquent pleader, a man of wider fame and larger powers than his American admirer, would not have used such an assumption as this, if by it he could have taken even the strongholds of a Howard.

I promised on Saturday to prove to-day, that in the possession of that shining quality called courage, “yourself alone could be your only parallel.” There is, I am aware, a desperation resembling courage, of which it is said cowards are capable; but I entertain not the slightest apprehension that I have mistaken the one for the other. It is generally in the dernier resort that we meet with desperation at all. It is the offspring of mental and physical convulsions and the inseparable companion of emergencies and extremities. When all is at stake it performs the same office courage does in quest of excitement, the redress of injuries or the support of the right. Now, my opinion is, that of late you have only been in quest of a little excitement; but in that adventure it certainly must be admitted that you have exhibited a courage it would take the desperation of a craven, when his very existence was at stake, to rival. A Greek philosopher of eminence once defined courage to be an indifference to consequences. If this be a correct definition, the memory of Chevalier Bayard may well tremble for its laurels, and the star of the heroic Conde, as well as that of the brave Merci, to whose memory he paid so delicate and thrilling a tribute in the monument he erected over his ashes, as well as that of the ill-fated Ney, who won at the cannon's mouth the imperishable sobriquet of the “bravest of the brave,” must all pale before the dazzling splendors and transcendent effulgence of this bran new luminary that has only but yesterday shot into its orbit upon the horizon of Botetourt; for, my dear sir, from your first appearance in this controversy, you have exhibited a morbid indifference to consequence altogether sufficient to put the martyrs of stoicism themselves to the blush. In the first place, you have deliberately, roundly and emphatically asserted that I have assumed positions and made issues I never assumed or made, all to furnish an excuse to say something that would have brighter than lightning or sharper than a two-edged sword, if it only had not been a simple game of battle-door and shuttle-cock, where, as in the play, the author fixes up the speeches of both parties. How could a man of your native astuteness fail to see that you never could perpetrate such folly and escape detection? And if you cooly made up your mind to become, a public butt for the amusement of the “lookers on in Vienna,” I must be permitted to insist that therein you do exhibit a stoically heroic indifference to consequences. From the numerous and enormous blunders you are continually making and repeating, the inference is a fair one, that while it is probable you are a laborious reader, it is equally certain that you are, only a superficial student, and that after having flitted through and over a thousand pages you resemble a man who has traveled a long journey with closed eyes and ears. He returns, of course, with a traveled body, but not a traveled mind. He, however, must have gotten the benefit of fresh air and exercise, whereas you will have lost those benefits without acquiring any equivalent in lieu thereof—but, on the contrary, have acquired an habitually superficiality, and the result you simply read every thing and seriously study nothing, and yet you presume, upon a mere cursory glance, to dispose in solemn form and put at rest finally and forever, questions of whatever gravity and magnitude may chance to come before you. This, no man, without the courage of a lion, could ever dare to do. But I must do you the justice to add, that as a full recompense for your uniform habit, of never giving to other men's thoughts more than a superficial glance, you are knightly and considerate enough never to bother other men with thoughts of your own, demanding more than you give. Such munificence is worthy of a Prince, such benevolence of a philanthropist, and as nothing is more proverbial than that generosity and courage are inseparable concomitants, it furnishes additional evidence of your redoubtable pluck. In the last two letters I had the temerity to address you, I presented to you several fair issues, and how did you meet them. Precisely as it is said a fellow in a buggy once behaved, when he met on the highway a six horse team. The road was narrow and out of the beaten path, on either side it was buggy, so the man undertook to bully the teamster, and in an explosion of dignified indignation, demanded, “Are you not going to get out of my way, sir?” What will you do if I don't, quietly asked the wagoner? What will I do? why, sir, I will soon show you what I will do! A moment of suspense elapsed, whereupon the wagoner, with an apparently very calm indifference to the consequences, replied, “Well, sir, what will it be? Why, sir, retorted the proprietor of the one horse establishment, if you do not get out of my way instantly, I will certainty——get out of yours.

I threw down to you gage after gage, which you, instead of picking up, play on me the buggy trick and go dodging around my six horse team of facts, and it is the natural result of that superficial way you have of reading everything and bobbing around generally.

You seem to look all around an issue without ever seeing it, and then you write all around it, without ever touching it. In this you remind me of a young orator I once knew. He had a bosom crony, in whose criticisms he had great confidence. After having made, on one occasion, one of his “rousers,” as soon as he closed he caught the eye of his friend, which he fancied beamed with more than its ordinary light, and mistaking it for approbation, he rushed up to him and exclaimed, “Now, Tom, what have you got to say to that speech?” “O,” replied Tom, “I have no hesitation in saying, and I say it boldly, it is the greatest speech you ever did deliver, and will remain to your dying day the great speech of your life. In truth, it has but one solitary fault.” “O, my beloved friend, you will strangle me with joy. Only one fault! and that too comes from you, who have heretofore had a thousand faults to find with my speeches. How I must have improved! Who will deny, now, that I am a growing and rising man? Only one fault! Do tell me, Tom, what is that one, I dare say it is a small one, and I may easily correct it.” O,” replied Tom, “you never touched the subject?” Now, those last two articles of yours in the Whig, I dare say, are far better articles than Tom's friend's speech was a speech, but they were afflicted with precisely the same disorder. I presented you with facts, which it was for you to admit or deny, and you did neither, but, dodging an issue, failed, exactly as Tom's friend did, to touch the subject. Nevertheless, I enjoyed your articles hugely; it was plain enough to be seen that you “was in a weaving way,” and “spent your figures free,” and to me, it has always been a source of unalloyed delight, to took on at others when they are warming up with the enjoyment of themselves. But there is one other additional evidence of your Cæsarean pluck, that I have not yet adduced; I allude to the indomitable obstinacy and dashing boldness, with which you couch your lance and poise your spear in defence of any blunder you may have made per fas et ne fas, you remind me of that chivalric wight described by the poet when he said: “He strives for trifles and for toys contends,And then in earnest, what he says, defends.”

In this you evince a nobility of nature that is God-like. It makes me forget and forgive all your faults, and want to hug you. Some people might be found vulgar enough to christen this stupidity, but I have a better, and a holier name for it, to wit, humanity. No man that ever saw in a family of children, one who was a cripple, blind, deaf, mute, or deformed, could have failed to notice that the poor unfortunate little one was the pet of its parents. To their warm and tender bosoms they drew it nearer, and over its wayward wanderings they watched with a fonder care, and in this they exemplified a God like humanity; and when you draw near to your poor little blind, deaf, mute, deformed and crippled arguments and blunders, and draw your glittering steel boldly in their defence, you do not only establish the fact which none can dare dispute, that you have a superabundance of pluck, but you emulate the example of the noble fathers and mothers, who love their cripples best; and I say, you thereby challenge the admiration, not only of Botetourt, but “of the balance of mankind.” I am now through with my allegata, and will proceed at once to my probata, and as my heart is in a soft mood now toward you, about your little cripples, I will commence on them; and I promise you that whenever I lay my hands on their tender limbs and helpless forms, I will studiously avoid everything to which the most sensitive parent could object. The first one I shall notice is one of your eldest, if not your first born. It is your ipse dixit that France and Germany are infidel nations. I plead the general issue of, not guilty, to this count in your indictment, and did suppose that you would, upon reflection, (by the way do you ever do that thing—reflect?) enter a nolle prosequi, blow your horn, (as you are so fond of horn blowing,) and call off your dogs, Tray, Blanche, Sweetheart, and all the rest. But that superficial way you have of looking at matters, united with that ennobling affection you cherish for your deformed offspring, rallies you before the country to demand a trial. Well, you shall have it. And the first question with which I confront you is, when were France and Germany infidel nations? There is but one way to ascertain, and that is from the musty tomes of history. On this issue, you hold the affirmative, and are bound to produce the proof; and proceeding upon the presumption that you imagine you have done so, I will proceed to introduce rebutting evidence. In the first place, then, literature is the only outlet civilized infidelity has. Infidels have no churches through which to disseminate their pernicious dogmas. So they lift the flood-gates of the press, and deluge the land with essays, poems, pamphlets and plays. Then we will have to look into the history of French and German literature, to ascertain the extent of their infidelity. We will commence with France. Beginning with the middle ages, the literary history of France may be divided into three periods: The first extends from 1000 to 1500, and includes the literature of the Troubadours and the Trouvers. If a great infidel lived in this age, what was his name? If he had followers, how many? It was in this age, you must remember, sir, that the people of both France and Germany were wrought into such a furor of religious enthusiasm by Peter the Hermit, and other powerful orators, who swept the whole face of all Europe, with a storm of religious eloquence, until they rallied under the banner of the cross pious soldiers enough to sack Jerusalem, and it was in this period that numerous religious sects sprung up in France and Germany. One I remember originated in the district of Albi, in the 12th century, and was called the Albigeneses. It resembled somewhat, the Protestantism of this day, and was tolerated and protected by the Court of Toulouse. But as this sect augmented and began to flourish, Innocent III., who was the reigning Roman Pope at that time, declared war against it, and for the balance of that period France and Germany were under the unceasing scourge of theological wars.

'Twas in this period and towards the close of it that that renowned ecclesiastic Froissart flourished, as also did Phillippe de Commines; and it was in this period that religion was of such universal and absorbing interest to the common people, that the Pilgrims—who returned from the Holy Land—resolved to give a dramatic exhibition under the title of the Fraternity of the Passion. One of the pieces they enacted was the history of our Saviour from his cradle to his sepulchre. It was entirely too long for one representation and was, therefore, continued from day to day, and was attended by multitudes of people. Here, then, is conclusive proof that, at this period, France and Germany were intensely christian nations.

The second period extends from 1500 to 1700, and includes the revival of the study of classical literature, or the Renaissance and of the golden age of French literature under Louis the 14th. If a great infidel rose or reigned in this period, “What's his name and where's his name.”

n this period history tells us that the downfall of Constantinople promoted the revival of ancient literature; of the invention of printing, of the discovery of a new world, of the decline of feudalism and the consequent elevation of the middle classes, but nothing about infidelity. The Renaissance and Reformation went lovingly hand in hand along the banks of the Rhine and Seine. Among those who eagerly imbibed the spirit of both stood the lovely and loveable Princess Marguerite de Valoise, elder sister of Francis the First. Her valet-de-chambre was the poet Marot. He was a Calvanistic theologian, and in his holy hymns and poems were happily blended familiarity, propriety, elegance and grace, and they were universally read.

But it was in Calvin that the Reformation, and in Rabelais that the Renaissance found their representative types. Yet very many other intellectual, moral and religious lights flourished in this period, whose rays are still beaming on us through the haze of time. Among them you will find Balzac, Voiture, Menage, Scudery, Chaplain, Costart, Conrad, the Abbe Bossuet, and Cardinal Richelieu. And it was about this time that that great original and powerful thinker, Descartes, opened and blazed the way for Lock, Newton and Liebnitz. And it was in this same period that Bosseret, Bourdelone, and Massalon, three of the most powerful pulpit orators the Catholic church ever produced, flourished. Bosseret addressed the conscience through the imagination, Bourdalone through the judgment, and Massalon through the feelings. And it was these two centuries that produced that great geomatrician Pascal, those eminent lawyers Patru, Pellesson, Cochin and D'Aguesseau, those moral philosophers, Rochefaucald and La Bruzere, those great Authors of pure romance, Madame LaFayette and Fenelon, that incomparable letter writer, Madame de Sevigne, those celebrated dramatists and artists, Racene and Corneille, and those perspicuous and able historians, Bosseret de Retz and St. Simon. They were the ruling and master spirits of this period: Which one of them was an infidel?

The third period extends from 1700 to the present day, and if France and Germany are to be convicted of national infidelity, it must be in this period or not at all, and I am free to admit that men wonderfully gifted did flourish in France and Germany in this period, who were infidels, but their infidelity was not the source of their popularity, but their popularity prevailed even over their infidelity. Skepticism had its origin in the criticism of Lamott, who was only a literary skeptic. He raised the standard of revolt against the worship of antiquity, and would have dethroned poetry itself on the ground of its inutility. Thus skepticism commenced by established literary doctrines, becoming matters of doubt and controversy. High among the skeptics about this time, stood the Baron de Montesquieu. His popularity was commensurate with his fame; but to what was he indebted for that fame. By no means to those “Persian Letters,” but in truth it was, based upon his “Spirit of Laws,” which it is accorded on all hands is the greatest monument of human wisdom erected in the 18th century. History says “it is a profound analysis of law in its relation with government, customs, climate, religion and commerce.” The book is inspired with a spirit of justice and humanity. But the great apostle of infidelity in France was Voltaire, and his popularity knew no limit below the stars. But to what was it attributable? Certainly not to his skepticism, for he was imprisoned three times in the Bastile and three times had to fly from France on account of his skepticism. What then was the secret of his immense popularity. It was his poems, essays, dramas and wit. Over his dark thoughts his wit played, like lightning over dark clouds, and over France the corruscations of his genius flashed for half a century with a vividness that dazzled and infatuated all classes of society, irrespective of creeds. And the thunders of the Vatican that expatriated the infidel to-day would be lost to-morrow, amid the louder thunders of the popular Catholic voice calling home the wit like the whistle of a sailor boy is lost amid the roar of the tempest. When “Zaire” was played, all Catholic France rushed to the theatre, and the greatest honor he ever received came from a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm, with which he was once welcomed upon entering the theatre while they were performing one of his plays. He had for a long time been absent from Paris, and when the eye of the audience fell upon the bowed and venerable form of the great author of not only a thousand and one happy hours of glowing interest they had enjoyed, but of the mental repast that was then being spread before them, their enthusiasm broke through every restraint, and burst upon him like a tornado. Old men put their arms affectionately around him. Beautiful women poured upon him a refreshing shower of passionate kisses, and all joined in taking him viet armis to the stage, and enthroning him upon it, and weaving round his brow a wreathe of living laurels. Voltaire wept with joy. But this was no tribute to his infidelity. It was the homage a Catholic people delighted to pay to transcendent genius. His society was courted by Frederick the Great and all the great intellects and wits of Europe. But infidelity had nothing to do with all this. I know that a literary society was formed in France, the avowed purpose of which was to smite down religion, and that its members frequently assembled in the salons of Mesdames du Deffant, Geoffrin, de l'Espinasse and Baron d'Holback, and that for a time their doctrines spread like a malaria, blasting religion and morals temporarily. To this society belonged that cynic and sophist, Diderot, D'Alembert, Rosseau, Condillac, the sentimentalist, Grim, the philosopher, Helvetius, and the malicious Marmontel, but right here I wish to call your special attention to three prominent facts. The infidels if they ever had anything to do with the laws, never licensed gambling; that at no period was France ever under the sceptre of an infidel King or Emperor, and that the communicants of the Catholic church did always and do now outnumber all other denominati, including the infidels in France, and if this does not prove that France never was and is not an infidel nation, then facts are impotent and argument useless. Moreover, it is well known to every student of history out of Botetourt that infidelity has run its course in France and is now prostrated with the dry rot. Necker, the father of Madam de Stael, drew his bright blade on the side of the church when the storm of infidelity was at its wildest, and around him there gathered a formidable host of powerful writers, and they kept the banner of the cross flying from the masthead of the church when the beach was being thickly strewn with the wreck of infidel crafts. Madame de Stael and Chauterbriand fought the battle of the church in literature, Maine de Biran and Royer-Collard in philosophy, and Benjamin Constant in political science, and to no inconsiderable extent they did succeed in neutralizing the baleful influences of Voltair and his school, and from that day to this, infidelity has been on the wane in France. A Catholic sits on her throne, Catholics sit in her councils and Catholics frame her laws, and now what do you take by your allusion to infidel France, when it eventuates that France never was and is not infidel France, and that when there were more infidels there than there were at any other time, gambling was not licensed, and now, when they do not wield over the vine-clad hills one shadow of influence, it is. To Germany and the balance of your crippled and deformed brats I will look to-morrow.

Your sweeping charge of infidelity against France was made still more sweeping by the inclusion of Germany. Germany is that portion of central Europe which lies between the Adriatic and the Baltic. It has an ancient and a well written history. It has produced its full quota of the great thinkers, writers and travellers of Europe. The arts and sciences have always had, and have to-day, more votaries and patrons there than they have elsewhere, and what is still more remarkable it always has been, and still continues to be, the most intensely religious spot on the whole face of the civilized globe. Go back, if you please, to the year A. D. 360, when Ulphilas gave the Goths his translation of the Bible, and come along up through the reign of Charlemagne, and the Suabian age to the House of Hapsburg, and you will find no footprints of infidelity on the surface of German history. The Germans poured out their blood like water and laid down their lives like martyrs, to establish in Germany not only a religion, but the Protestant religion. The most important works of the 14th and 15th centuries are the writings of German monks which kindled and kept alive a religious fervor among the middle and lower classes, whereby a whole nation was kept waiting to receive and made ready to support a Reformer. They represented religion as consisting in the sentiments of the heart, rather than in doctrines. Their main principle was that piety depended not on ecclesiastical forms, but consisted in the abandonment of all selfish passions. Tauler, in 1361, codified, the sentiments of these monks in a volume which he christened “German Theology.” Luther, in a preface to this book, centuries subsequently, expresses his admiration of its contents and asserts that he had found in it the germs of the Reformation, and it was here on German soil, long after the star of the Suabian dynasty, under, the divine light of which the Crusaders flourished, had gone down in gloom and blood and the sweet tones of the Suabian lyre had died away, that that selfsame Reformation was ushered into this breathing world. 'Twas in the 16th century when the Emperor and the Pope were in all the plenitude of their power. The armies of the one were drawn by conscriptions from Spain, Austria, Naples, Sicily and Burgundy, while with his Inquisition and his thunderbolts of excommunication the other coerced the priests and monks to rally under his banner from all parts of the Christian world. Against these formidable powers, a poor, obscure and nameless Augustine monk came forth from his closet in the small university of Wittenburg, with no treasures in his coffers nor arms of any kind in his hands save the Bible alone, and in a clear manly voice defied the Emperor, the Pope, the clergy, and the nobility. And around him gathered Melancthon, Manuel Zwingle, Fishart, Franck, Arnd and Jacob Beehn, and they impressed the literature and theology of that age with their master's spirit and name; and most properly, for he was not only the most prominent character of that age but he was the exponent of their national feeling and gave shape and utterance to thoughts and sentiments which had been before universally felt but obscurely expressed, and his influence was acknowledged in almost every department of German life. “The remoddeling of the German tongue may be said to have gone hand in hand with the Reformation, and it is to Luther more than any other it owes its rapid progress. His translation of the Bible was the great work of the period, and gives to him the deserved title of creator of German prose. The Scriptures were now familiarly read by all classes and never has their beautiful simplicity been more admirably rendered.” In the 17th century flourished Opitz, Pufendorf, Kepler, Arnold and Pant Gerhard, the sacred hymns of some of whom are still heard in the churches of Germany. In the 18th century Klopstock, Lessing, Weiland and the eminent theologian Herder were the great German theological and literary lights. Early in the present century Goethe and Schiller made their appearance. The names of their contemporaries and successors like the arrows of the Persians at Thermopylæ would make a cloud that would obscure the Sun, and among them I dare say there might be found an occasional transcendentalist who is a metaphysical infidel but the infidels of Germany are few in number and morally impotent. They have no representative type who is a master spirit. For the respect that you have for the memory of Martin Luther and William of Orange and for a land over which war raged for thirty years that Protestant christianity might flourish there, I do beseech you retract your scandalous calumny against Germany.

There may be, in Germany, to-day, a few infidels, but they cannot mould and fashion the nationality of Germany. Hume, Gibbon and Bolingbrooke were infidels, nevertheless, Britton was not an infidel nation. The people of the United States elevated to the Presidency a confirmed skeptic. Were his party all infidels? Bring the rule home with which you attempted to damn Germany and France, and the Confederate and United States will have to take a damning too, and Virginia her full share of it.

Since publishing my first article on this subject, I have ascertained that a revenue is drawn from gambling, by the governments both of Spain and Italy. Are they infidel nations?

In your first article you asserted in unequivocal and unqualified terms, that public opinion had put down female gambling. Here is your language: “If the gentleman had familiarized himself with the history of gaming, he would have known that the public opinion, of which he speaks slightingly, as rather inclining the other side has put an end to female gambling for money.” Now, when I proved that females still gambled at Saratoga, N.Y., Baden-Baden, and other fashionable resorts in Europe, what, sir, is your reply? Here it is. “Does that refute my statement.” When I speak of Addison and of English opinion as moulded by his writings, that I was extending this influence to Germany, where a different language is used and a different type of civilization obtains.” Now, just allow me to quietly ask, did effrontery ever, in a gambling “hell,” or an infidel salon, put on a more thorough dare-devil face than this.

In the first place, nothing is better known in the literary world than that the “Spectator” has been translated into the French and German languages, and published in France and Germany, and no doubt has been as generally read in those countries as it has been in England. If so, why are not the truths it contains entitled to as much weight in one country as in the other? Doubtless, however, on this card you “coppered” what you supposed to be the extent of the information of Erskine and the public. But I only allude to these facts to show you cannot be permitted to wriggle through the loop hole that you think you are squirming out at, for the facts do not occupy a position from which they can be made to screen the spasms your attempt to squeeze through that loop hole has brought on you. Your language in this instance, whether intentionally or fortuitously, is pointed, perspicuous and comprehensive, and to give it all of its force, you italicised it as I have quoted it italicised, and sir, you did not therein as anybody can see, speak of the suppression of female gambling “as a general thing,” or as a “vice,” or among one people more than another, but your assertion swept the face of hemispheres, and literally pulverized the dry bones of the assumed to be, dead habit. And if you only meant to refer to the Anglo Saxon race, or to the suppression of a “general feminine indulgence in this vice,” the presumption of which you are guilty in attempting to instruct the public before you are capable of saying that which you want to say, is worthy only of your landed estate parallel and logic, your cock sparrow egotism and vanity, and your Botetourt politeness and refinement, and furnishes another evidence of your chronic superficiality. You do not only read superficially that which others write, but you read your own effusions in the same way. Now, this is not only at war with true politeness and refinement at home, but is extremely impolitic, for if you will not treat your own offspring with common respect, how can you expect the world to do it. And for all the cavalier treatment your mongrel brood of opinions and assertions (of the paternity of an argument up to this time, I believe you to be innocent) may hereafter receive, you will doubtless be indebted to “the power of your own example.” But this sentence is one of your unfortunate progeny, whom I suppose you do not care how much I chastise, for it has deliberately lied on its papa. You say you told it to say one thing, and it says you told it to say another. Of course the “power of example” being irresistible, I am bound to and do believe you. Now, sir, allow me to inform you that the females who gamble at Baden-Baden and elsewhere in Europe, are rarely ever the soft blue eyed beauties of the Teutonic race, but are the more gay and fashionable and less religious belles and dames who flit and flutter through the same salons in West End and Grosvenor Square, which the wit of Addison once irradiated. In my allusion to the talents and accomplishments of certain gamblers, I did not pretend to speak from personal knowledge. I never saw poor Prindle. I did not know the graduate to whom I made allusion, and in speaking of a remarkably brilliant colloquist of this city, I distinctly said “I am told” such an one resides here, and in alluding to the high position other gamblers occupied for integrity in the confidence of honorable gentlemen here who know them, I spoke of their reputations, and gave no opinion of my own. Yet so superficial was the glance you gave it, or careless the allusion you made to it, that you charge these opinions home upon me as mine. Here, sir, is one of your own “positive statements which is entirely without foundation.” If you think it amounts to a “mantle,” it is yours, and the weather is suggestive.

Already I have been reluctantly compelled to make more than one allusion to a characteristic of yours, that does not only appear to be preeminently prominent, but constitutional, to wit, your vanity. But it was “more in sorrow than in anger” I did it. With you it amounts almost to a fanaticism. So vain are you of your erudition, that, for the sake of all opportunity to parade your pedantry before the stare of the multitude, you do not hesitate to summon a witness to the stand from the summit of Mt. Parnassus against your own cause. When I saw that quotation in your article I marvelled as did the old virtuoso when he saw a fly preserved in ambier.

Then, again, toward the close, your antediluvian allusion, smacks smartly of the idea that you thought that that flood had been gotten up more for your benefit than to cleanse the world of its wickedness, that you were destined to realize more fame from crossing it, than Sir James Cook did from his voyage round the world, and that by the dint of your omnipotent genius, you had identified yourself with it so thoroughly, that no scholar, of proper refinement, would ever allude to it again in your presence, as Noah's flood, but that henceforth and forever, it would be bound to be known as W.M.'s flood, and so designated in chronology and all the Encyclopedias. No doubt you have often fancied of late, that you could distinctly hear resounding through the lapse of centuries, the roar of its angry surges as they lifted up their loud voices to chant the requiem of the lost millions, over whose graves they rolled. Evidently, it is your deliberate purpose to take possession of and appropriate that flood and why not. Deucalion claims one; but his was subsequent to yours, and must have been rather a small affair, not deep enough water for you, but his success justifies your ambition and as Noah died in possession of the whole world it is not right to claim for him that flood too.

The only evidence by which I proved that there must have been gaming before the flood was what is technically termed “presumptive,” and I was amazed at your abrupt and unconditional rejection of it, for surely in this controversy, and I doubt not elsewhere, you have presumed enough yourself to have found out long ago, through your feelings if not otherwise, that in presumption there certainly must be evidence of something neither refined or polite.

But why did you institute so pointed a parallel between Lord Erskine and myself? I am bound to suspect that it was because you knew that you could not, and hoped I would not survive the contrast. But thank Heaven, I am still inter vivos. “I still live,” little as I pretend to be the peer of the illustrious British Lord; but, if I only had half of your fanatical vanity, I never should have known I was not his peer, and should be too happy to care a baubee what you thought about it. But you have discovered a sovereign panacea for all the moral ills that gambling flesh is heir to. In the first place, your theory is without the merit of originality, and, moreover, lacks another and still more important merit, to wit: practicality. Ces discours il est vrai sont fort beaux dans un livre. (All this will do very well for a book.)

In the South it has been long since again and again tried, and exploded, and why? There is a logical maxim which runs, “the virtue of a law does not consist so much in the severity as the certainly of punishment,” and its truth has been forcibly exemplified in all the Southern States, where gambling has been made a felony, but no gambler has ever been made a felon. When you make a vice which has hitherto only been a misdemeanor suddenly assume the huge proportions of a felony, the people say that you allowed them to become addicted to it as a misdemeanor, and then want to put upon them for the practice of it the penalties of a felony, this, they say, has in it expost facto, blood, and morally, it becomes a dead letter. A prosecution under it, would furnish much stronger evidence of the malice, than it would of the virtue, of the informer, and the effect of it will dishonor, if it does not defeat the law and protect, if it does not provoke and abet culprits. When you imprudently encumber a law with a harsher penalty than the feelings of the public will sanction, you will thereby at once separate public sympathy from the law, and twine it tenderly around the persecuted criminal, and this must inevitably enure to the permanent prejudice of law and order, by manuring and watering the vigorous roots of crime and sending them deeper into the earth and causing its Upas foliage to flourish more luxuriantly above it.

One of the facts which was in my six-horse team, and which when I presented, you attempted to ridicule, but did not dare to deny, was the well known integrity of certain gamblers. Rdiicule is a powerful weapon, only when it is hurled against sophisms, mere casuistry or fanaticisms. Then

But when its poisoned arrows hit facts they rebound. When Cervantese opened the batteries of his sarcasm and drollery on Knight Errantry, be fired 74 pound bomb shells at a gossamer fortification, and he blew it into a nonentity. Don Quixote was read, and the “order” vanished. But when Tom Payne and Voltaire attempted to fire precisely the same kind of ammunition at the Bible—the very battlements of Heaven—their shells rebounded before they exploded, and did all the mischief they did at all in their own ranks. Tom Payne and Voltaire are no more, but that Eternal Harp of the Great Jehovah—the Bible, albeit upon its celestial strings have fallen the blighting breath of twenty-five centuries, yet when over them the soft low sigh of faith floats, they still give forth in Æolean music, that stirs the highest and holiest hopes that sooth the bruised bosom of fallen humanity. If that which I stated was not the truth, it was beneath ridicule; if it was the truth, it was above it, and I have the opinion of gentlemen, than whom none stand higher in this city, that there are gamblers here whose integrity, that malignant breath, which is bought and sold every day, cheap, under the name of scandal, never soiled. Attempt to send such men to the Penitentiary, branded as felons, for playing a fair game of cards, and the nature that is in the people will bear it not. Whereas if you will make cheating and swindling at cards felonies, and detect, convict, and condemn scoundrels, under this statute, all honorable and high minded men, and honest and upright citizens, will be bound to say to it cordially, amen; and they will do it with a vim, for between a fraud at cards, and a midnight foray upon a sheep-fold, there is no moral distinction. In your first article, you attempted to prove that a man's liberty to bet would be involved and restrained to some extent, if he had to go past an unlicensed gaming house to get to a lawful gaming house. I declined, when I replied to you, to answer such flimsy sophistry, such sheer baliverne—betise. To have treated such balderdash with respect, would have required an amount of hypocrisy to which I could not conscientiously stoop, and I did hope the manner in which I was constrained to treat it, would open your eyes, and you would certainly see its transparent fallacy. But no, that is not the way you treat your little mutes, and so you take another tilt at the “fullest and freest fruition of the pet passion of the million,” to show you was logically right. I never supposed that, when I only asked that the people might have the freest and fullest fruition of a game when they got to it, that you or anybody else, would ever imagine that, to carry out such a law, the game must be taken to the people. And, had you detected any one else in the perpetration of such a tour d'impuissance, you would have unhesitatingly branded him a “Theban Pig.” Boeotum in crasso juares aere natum.

You certainly have less inclination for discrimination than any law-giver. I ever had the misfortune to meet before; and if I were to gamble at all, I would hazard largely that you cannot tell whether, in nine cases out of ten, the boy carries the horse to water, or the horse carries the boy to water. A large majority of gamblers take the initiative in the black art in villages and small towns, where “tigers,” when they grow lean and ravenous, prowl in quest of game no bigger than a cocksparrow. The novice begins by buying and betting dime checks; gradually the passion grows apace, and sooner or later he is lost, pecuniarily undone. This is the history of thousands upon thousands of ruined estates. License gambling, and put the license up at a proper figure, and no man can afford or would pretend to take out license in a village or small town. Youths brought up then at the feet of a village Gamaliel would no longer be beset by the fascinations of fashionable itinerants, seeking to seduce and destroy them hard by the altars of their sanctuaries. It would prevent millions upon millions of gray hairs from descending with sorrow to untimely graves, and it would save as many bitter, scalding tears from being shed at all, that aged mothers, young wives and orphan children may otherwise have to shed. You ask me would I accept a contribution to build a church from a gambler. I answer, unhesitatingly, that I would, cheerfully. In the first place, it would take that much from his capital, and thereby contribute to circumscribe his resources for mischief. In the second place it would put that much money into the pockets of the poor pious members of that church who would otherwise have to pay it out of their own scanty means. In the third place, I should only be permitting a man of the world to do a good action, the effect of which upon his meditations, might perchance lead to his regeneration; whereas, its rejection might cost him his soul, with the fear of which I would not like to have my conscience burthened. In the fourth place, I am always delighted when I see churches going up, under any and all circumstances; and I dare say if a gambler were, out of his abundant means, to build a church for a poor community himself, he would be very apt to command more of the confidence and esteem of the congregation than a minister of the gospel who would refuse to preach to them in it because they might not be able to pay him the salary he demanded, or appreciate the snow flakes of religion he mingled in his sermons with hailstones of literature, lightnings of vanity and thunders of bombast. Level to the earth to-morrow every church in Richmond gamblers have contributed to build or sustain, and many a bright Sabbath morning would come and go before the familiar voice of a glad church bell would be heard again calling its shepherd's scattered flock to his fold.

A revenue is necessary to support the government, and taxation is necessary to raise a revenue. There is a direct and indirect way of levying taxes, and that government is always the most perfect, among the citizens of which there prevails the least discontent, and direct taxation always produces more discontent, than any other system. The money which is paid for a license is an indirect contribution to the public revenue. I say that it is right and proper that this revenue should be levied in part upon the vices of the land, and you say no, let the private virtues of the people bear all of the public burthens of the country. I say, the gambler who has won the last dollar of a sot, before he stagers into his grave, ought to be compelled, out of his play-made fortune, to take off the widow and orphans his victim may leave with a small estate so settled upon them he could not squander it, a part of “their lade o'care” and pay a part of their taxes. But you say no, let estates of widows and orphans be ground into dust under the iron heel of taxation; let their wails of distress, be ever so piercing and let their tears flow ever so thick and fast, still make them respond to the law and pay to the last copper due the hungry tax-gatherer, but let the gambler, who has as in his coffers the money that should be in theirs, escape with a mere (to him) nominal tax. He is rich and they are poor. Yet you say, let him pay his taxes in pennies and make them pay theirs in doubloons. Such humanity and justice is worthy only of the superstition that, while it recoils with a mock horror from a liberal donation out of funds fairly won and freely offered to you by a gambler to build a church, teases a niggardly merchant out of a paltry pittance, which he grudgingly gives out of a fund he has told lies enough to accumulate to damn a thousand souls. The above ambrotype fairly presents the natural and legal results of your and views mine.

But we must part. I have already implored you never to gamble. I have now a parting prayer to address to you. I see you are young, ardent, impulsive—and occasionally read your Bible. Now the request I am about to make of you is never do you attempt to

When I implored you never to gamble, it was for your own sake alone. I importuned you then, but it is for the cause of religion, pure and undefiled, I am pleading with you now, for you may rest quietly assured that if it could survive the advocacy of your logic and the contamination of your worldly vanity, instead of making the devil hang his harp upon the willow, as it ought, it would only provoke him to redouble his exertions, and we would have ten times more gamblers and infidels than we ever did. Farewell!

Benti voglio don't neglect that flood, your flood—but that was, formerly, called Noah's flood—but don't, I beseech you, attempt to take a man's life with your flood. [That flood has taken lives enough already.] Remember the fate of poor lady Macbeth. After she had caused Duncan to be murdered under her own roof, in his bed, the last words that ever escaped her addled lips were: “To bed! to bed!” Now, if you were to murder ERSKINE in that flood of yours, you would be certain to kick the bucket, exclaiming: “To the flood! to the flood! to the flood!”