Or This?

(2) But perhaps our very dogmatic Northern 'moralists' maintain that the sin and 'vice' of church lotteries consists essentially in risking a valuable consideration of one kind (to wit, a coin) for the marketable chance of winning a valuable consideration of another kind (to wit, a painted plaque or picture)? But wherein precisely do the sin and deordination lie? And by all means let us have—for we are entitled to it—chapter and verse of the divine law which sends us to the Bottomless Pit for indulging in a threepenny raffle at a charity bazaar. (We are, of course, entitled to assume that the lottery is fairly conducted; that the coin which purchases the chance is absolutely ours, to dispose of as we please; and that we can well afford to spend it). We are free to make an uncondiditional gift of our coin is the art union, or to spend it upon our amusement is any other way. On what principle may we not also give it with a condition attached, which at the same time affords us recreation, the hope of winning what the others interested are willing we should win, and the chance of losing what we are, in every, event, ready to lose with a happy heart? Or, in these dollar-worshipping days, have silver coins become so sacrosanct that they must not be risked? Soldiers, footballers, explorers, and pioneers expose something vastly more precious—life and health and strength—for love of country or for amusement, or for profit, or for mere adventure. Shall they, merely because of the risks they run, be ranked with scallywags and suicides? And do the Wellington 'moralists' desire the end of all speculative trade?