'So Enchantingly Shy'

There are some men so constituted mentally that they seem incapable of seeing that circumstances alter cases. But they are not the men that sensible people choose for spiritual 'guides. Is the Wellington Council of the Churches unaware that the term 'gambling' is one 'of protean meanings? Know they not that 'gamming' 'may be looked upon both as a sport, a pastime, a recreation, and as a serious business, a passion' ('Baldwin, 'Diet, of Philosophy and Psychology,' vol. I., p. 403)? Are they not aware that it covers actions as widely divergent in their moral nature and in their effects as (on the one hand) playing for pins or wax vestas, and (on the other hand) welshing, the gambling orgies of Jubilee Juggins or Hogarth's rake, and the staking of fortunes on the Derby or on the trembling chances of rouge-et-noir at Monte Carlo? Can any good cause be served by those vague and confused denunciations of 'gambling' sans phrase—by indiscriminately damning all its possible phases to the same deep pit of Tophet?

And why, oh, why
So enchantingly shy

about stating and establishing the reflex principles (if any) on which these denunciations are based? Are page 6 church lotteries, in their minds, sinful and 'vicious' in themselves, or because of some circumstance or circumstances that are not inherent to them? (1) Do our Wellington 'moralists,' for instance, maintain that the casting of lots—whether by straws, bones,' numbered cubes, colored stones, or otherwise—is in itself sinful? Or (2) does the alleged violation of divine law consist essentially in risking a coin (say a threepenny piece) for a prize, such as a painted plaque or picture? Or (3) do they hold that the asserted deordination consists in the profit or the hope of gain? Or (4) do they demand the total abolition of church and charitable lotteries, as '.vicious practices,' because, like all things human, they are liable to abuse? Heaven only knows! The Council of the Churches finds oratory cheaper than exposition. It has left us to inference and random guesses. But so far as one may gather up ideas amidst the din of clamorous declamation, it would seem as if some of its members hold, with Dr. Horton, that lotteries and wagers of every kind are always and in all circumstances sinful.