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to Him-learn of Him-trust Him; make His | etrating the thick atmosphere which hung as a Book your guide;" and opening the Bible he vail before his bedroom window. read one other passage: "Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last."

To Mathew the sunbeams came like heavenly messengers, winging their way through the darkness and chaos of the world for the world's light Pondering on this blessed rule of life, so sim- and life. He had never thought of that before; ple and so comprehensive, he turned back the but he thought of and felt it then, and much good pages, repeating it over and over again, until he it did him, strengthening his good intent. A came to the first fly-leaf, wherein were written positive flood of light poured in through a pane the births, marriages, and deaths of the humble of glass which had been cleaned the previous family to whom the Bible had belonged; and morning, and played upon the cover of the poor therein, second on the list, he saw in a stiff, half- | Drunkard's Bible. Mathew bent his knees to printed hand, the name-EMMA HANBY, only daughter of James and Mary Jane Hanby, born so-and-so, married at such a date to PETER CROFT!

the ground, his heart full of emotions—the emotions of his early and better nature-and he bowed his head upon his hands, and prayed in honest resolve and earnest zeal. The burden of that prayer, which escaped from between his lips in murmurs sweet as the murmurs of living waters, was-that God would have mercy upon him, and keep him in the right path, and make him, unworthy as he was, the means of grace to others

"Emma Hanby"-born in his native village; the little Emma Hanby whom he had loved to carry over the brook to school-by whose side in boy-love he had sat in the meadows-for whom he had gathered flowers-whose milk-pail he had so often lifted over the church-stile-whom he—to be God's instrument for good to his fellowhad loved as he never could or did love woman creatures; to minister to the prosperity, the resince-whom he would have married, if she, generation of his own kind. Oh, if God would light-hearted girl that she was, could have loved but mend the broken vessel, if he would but heal the tall, yellow, awkward youth whom it was her the bruised reed, if he would but receive him into pastime to laugh at, and her delight to call "Dad- his flock! Oh, how often he repeated: "God dy" was she then the wife-the torn, soiled, give me strength! Lord strengthen me!" tattered, worn-out, insulted, broken-spirited wife And he arose, as all arise after steadfast prayer of the drunkard Peter Croft! It seemed impos--strengthened-and prepared to set about his sible; her memory had been such a sunbeam from work. I now quote his own account of what boyhood up; the refiner of his nature-the dream followed: that often came to him by day and night. While passing the parochial school, when the full tide of girls rushed from its heat into the thick city air, his heart had often beat if the ringing laugh of a merry child sounded like the laugh he once thought music; and he would watch to see if the girl resembled the voice that recalled his early love.

"I had," he said, "fixed in my mind the duty I was called upon to perform; I saw it bright before me. It was now clear to me, whether I turned to the right or to the left; there it was, written in letters of light. I went down stairs, I unlocked the street-door, I brought a ladder from the back of my house to the front, and with my own hands, in the gray, soft haze of morn"And I have helped to bring her to this," he ing, I tore down the sign of my disloyalty to a repeated over and over to himself; "even I have good cause. The Grapes' lay in the kennel, done this this has been my doing." He might and my first triumph was achieved. I then dehave consoled himself by the argument, that if scended to my cellar, locked myself in, turned Peter Croft had not drunk at "the Grapes," he all the taps, and broke the bottles into the torwould have drunk somewhere else; but his sear-rents of pale ale and brown stout which foamed ed conscience neither admitted nor sought an around me. Never once did my determination exexcuse; and after an hour or more of earnest even waver. I vowed to devote the remainder prayer, with sealed lips, but a soul bowed down, of my life to the destruction of alcohol, and to at one moment by contempt for his infirmity of give my power and my means to reclaim and purpose, and at another elevated by strong re- succor those who had wasted their substance solves of great sacrifice, Mathew, carrying with and debased their characters beneath my roof. him the Drunkard's Bible, sought his bed. He I felt as a freed man, from whom fetters had been slept the feverish, unrefreshing sleep which so fre- suddenly struck off; a sense of manly independquently succeeds strong emotion. He saw troops ence thrilled through my frame. Through the of drunkards-blear-eyed, trembling, ghastly spec- black and reeking arch of the beer-vault, I looked tres, pointing at him with their shaking fingers, up to Heaven; I asked God again and again for while, with pestilential breath, they demanded the strength of purpose and perseverance which "who had sold them poison." Women, too- I had hitherto wanted all my latter life. While drunkards, or drunkards' wives-in either case, called a respectable man,' and an honest pubstarved, wretched creatures, with scores of ghast-lican,' I knew that I was acting a falsehood, and ly children, hooted him as he passed through cav- dealing in the moral—perhaps the eternal—deaths erns reeking of gin, and hot with the steam of all of many of those careless drinkers, who had 'sorpoisonous drinks! He awoke just as the dawn row and torment, and quarrels and wounds withwas crowning the hills of his childhood without cause,' even while I, who sold the incentives glory, and while its munificent beams were pen- to sorrow and torment, and quarrels and wounds

without cause, knew that they bit like serpents | mad; she never understood me, but less than and stung like adders.' What a knave I had ever then. I had, of course, more than one scene been erecting a temple to my own respectability with her; and when I told her that, instead of on the ruins of respectability in my fellow-crea- ale, I should sell coffee, and substitute tea for tures! talking of honesty, when I was inducing brandy, she, like too many others, attaching an sinners to augment their sin by every temptation idea of feebleness and duplicity, and want of rethat the fragrant rum, the white-faced gin, the spectability to Temperance, resolved to find anbrown bouncing brandy, could offer-all adulter- other home. We passed a stormy hour together, ated, all untrue as myself, all made even worse and among many things, she claimed the Drunkthan their original natures by downright and pos- ard's Bible; but that I would not part with. itive fraud; talking of honesty, as if I had been | honest; going to church, as if I were a practical Christian, and passing by those I had helped to make sinners with contempt upon my lip, and a Stand by, I am holier than thou!' in my proud heart, even at the time I was inducing men to become accessories to their own shame and sin, and the ruin of their families.

"I lost no time in finding the dwelling of Peter Croft. Poor Emma! If I had met her in the broad sunshine of a June day, I should not have known her; if I had heard her speak, I should have recognized her voice among a thousand. Misery for her had done its worst. She upbraided me as I deserved. You,' she said, and such as you, content with your own safety, never think of the safety of others. You take care to avoid the tarnish and wretchedness of drunkenness yourselves, while you entice others to sin. Moderation is your safeguard; but when did you think it a virtue in your customers?'

"I told her what I had done, that in future mine would be strictly a Temperance house; that I would by every means in my power undo the evil I had done.

it save him, even if converted, from self-reproach?

will it open the grave, and give me back the child, my first-born, who, delicate from its cradle, could not endure the want of heat and food, which the others have still to bear?—will it give us back the means squandered in your house?will it efface the memory of the drunkard's songs, and the impurity of the drunkard's acts? 0 Mathew! that you should thrive and live, and grow rich and respectable, by what debased and debauched your fellow-creatures. Look!' she added, and her words pierced my heart' look! had I my young days over again, I would rather

"Bitter, but happy tears of penitence gushed from my eyes as the ocean of intoxicating and baneful drinks swelled, and rolled, and seethed around me. I opened the drain, and they rushed forth to add to the impurity of the Thames. 'Away they go!' I said; 'their power is past; they will never more turn the staggering workman into the streets, or nerve his arm to strike down the wife or child he is bound by the law of God and man to protect; never more send the self-inflicted fever of delirium-tremens through “Will that,' she answered in low deep tones the swelling veins; never drag the last shilling of anguish-will that restore what I have lost? from the drunkard's hand; never more quench-will it restore my husband's character ?---will the fire on the cottage hearth, or send the pale, overworked artisan's children to a supperless bed; never more blister the lips of woman, or poison the blood of childhood; never again inflict the Saturday's headache, which induced the prayerless Sunday. Away-away! would that I had the power to so set adrift all the so perverted produce of the malt, the barley, and the grape of the world! As my excitement subsided, I felt still more resolved; the more I calmed down, the firmer I became. I was as a paralytic recovering the use of his limbs; as a blind man restored to sight. The regrets and doubts that had so often disturbed my mind gathered themselves into a mighty power, not to be subdued by earthly motives or earthly reasoning. I felt the dignity of a mission; I would be a Temperance Missionary to the end of my days! I would seek out the worst among those who had frequented the Grapes,' and pour counsel and advice-the earnest counsel and the earnest advice of a purely disinterested man-into ears so long deaf to the voice of the charmer. I was a free man, no longer filling my purse with the purchase-money of sorrow, sin, and death. I owed the sinners, confirmed to lead the old life of sin in my house-I owed them atonement. But what did I not long to do for that poor Emma? When I thought of her-of her once cheerfulness, her once innocence, her once beauty-I could have cursed my-spectable-yes, that is the word, “respectable!" self. Suddenly my sister shook the door. She entreated me to come forth, for some one had torn down our sign, and flung it in the kennel. When I showed her the dripping taps and the broken bottles, she called me, and believed me

supposing that love had nothing to do with my choice-I would rather appear with my poor degraded husband, bad as he has been, and is, at the bar of God, than kneel there as your wife! You, cool-headed and moderate by nature, knowing right from wrong, well educated, yet tempting, tempting others to the destruction which gave you food and plenishing-your fine ginpalace! your comfortable rooms! your intoxicating drinks! the pleasant company! all, all! wiling the tradesman from his home, from his wife, from his children, and sending him back when the stars are fading in the daylight. Oh! to what a home! Oh! in what a state!'

"I do think, as you stand there, Mathew Hownley, well dressed, and well fed, and re

that you are, at this moment, in the eyes of the Almighty, a greater criminal than my poor husband, who is lying upon straw with madness in his brain, trembling in every limb, without even a Bible to tell him of the mercy which

Christ's death procured for the penitent sinner | Her heart was still with her husband, and she at the eleventh hour!'

"I laid her own Bible before her. I did not ask her to spare me, every word was true; I deserved it all. I went forth, I sent coal, and food, and clothing into that wretched room; I sent a physician; I prayed by the bedside of Peter Croft, as if he had been a dear brother. I found him truly penitent; and with all the resolves for amendment which so often fade in the sunshine of health and strength, he wailed over his lost time, his lost means, his lost characterall lost; all God had given-health, strength, happiness, all gone-all but the love of his illused and neglected wife; that had never died 'And remember,' she said to me, 'there are hundreds, thousands of cases as sad as his in En

found no rest until she was placed beside him in the crowded church-yard. The children live onthe son, with the unreasoning craving for strong drink, which is so frequently the inheritance of the drunkard's child; the daughters, poor weakly creatures-one, that little deformed girl who sits behind the tea-counter, and whose voice is so like her mother's; the other, a suffering creature, unable to leave her bed, and who occupies a little room at the top of what was 'the Grapes.' Her window looks out upon a number of flowerpots, whose green leaves and struggling blossoms are coated with blacks, but she thinks them the freshest and most beautiful in the world!"

GAMBLING HOUSES IN GERMANY.

THERE are subjects and scenes, in themselves loathsome to contemplate, which are yet suggestive of great moral lessons. And having, in a recent visit to Germany, unexpectedly witnessed the workings, and marked some of the results, of the foul passion for gambling, I shall now attempt to depict the sad reality, with the earnest hope that it may not be without benefit, especially to the young reader.

gland, in the Christian land we live in! Strong drink fills our jails and hospitals with sin, with crime, with disease, with death; its mission is sin and sorrow to man, woman, and child; under the cloak of good-fellowship it draws men together, and the "good-fellowship" poisons heart and mind! Men become mad under its influence. Would any man not mad, squander his money, his character, and bring himself and all he is bound to cherish to the verge of the pauper's On a summer afternoon in 1853, I was sauntergrave; nay, into it? Of five families in this ing with a young companion through a well-known wretched house, the mothers of three, and the town not far from the Rhine, celebrated for its fathers of four, never go to their ragged beds mineral springs. We had entered the magnifisober; yet they tell me good men, wise men, cent Kur Haus, the centre of fashionable resort, great men, refuse to promote temperance. Oh, and walking down the grand saal or dining-room, they have never seen how the half-pint grows to a door opened to the left, unexpectedly ushering the pint-the pint to the quart-the quart to the us, for the first time in our lives, into a gambling gallon! They have never watched for the drunk-"hell." With a painful feeling of mingled inard's return, or experienced his neglect or ill-dignation and disgust to find the visible proof usage-never had the last penny for their children's bread turned into spirits-never woke to the knowledge, that though the snow of December be a foot on the ground, there is neither food nor fire to strengthen for the day's toil!'

"Poor Emma! she spoke like one inspired; and though her spirit was sustained neither by flesh nor blood, she seemed to find relief in words. "When I spoke to her of the future with hope, she would not listen. No,' she said, my hope for him and for myself is beyond the grave. He can not rally; those fierce drinks have branded his vitals, burnt into them. Life is not for either of us. I wish his fate, and mine, could warn those around us; but the drunkard, day after day, sees the drunkard laid in his grave, and before the last earth is thrown upon the coffin, the quick is following the example set by the dead-of another, and another glass!'

"She was right. Peter's days were numbered; and when she knelt beside his coffin, she thanked God for his penitence, and offered up a prayer | that she might be spared a little longer for her children's sake. That prayer gave me hope: she had not spoken then of hope, except of that beyond the grave.

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My friends jested at my attention to the young widow, and perhaps I urged her too soon to become my wife. She turned away, with a feeling which I would not, if I could, express.

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before me that gambling was (as I had read in the guide-books) thus publicly sanctioned by law, I entered the room." How shall I describe the scene? I saw a crowd of well-dressed people gathered around a long table, over which was suspended a lamp, which, softened to the eye by a broad green shade (causing a kind of inferno gloom through the apartment), threw an intense light on the table beneath. In the midst of this table was a large revolving brazen dish. A ball of ivory rolling rapidly round it, ever and anon fell into a hollow space beneath, marked with certain numbers corresponding with those on the green cloth which covered the table. Around this dish were piled rouleaus of gold and silver coin, and at each side of the table sat two men as croupiers or markers, presiding over the game. One, two, or three persons, and often more, from the circle around, were incessantly laying down money. They staked sometimes gold, but more frequently silver. Almost immediately on our entrance, our attention was arrested by a young Englishman, fashionably dressed, but yet of such rakish and sinister aspect, that I set him down at once as a blackleg who had figured at Epsom or Newmarket; a London roué, who, having lost character and means at home, now formed one of that base band of English sharpers who are to be found on the Continent, and who initiate our young "bloods" into the mysteries of the gam

But I was yet to have one other glimpse of the German gambling-tables. Our present habitat at W- was but for a night; and on the morrow we left, and arrived two days after at the fashionable baths of E- on the banks of the Lahn. Here, as at W, the government has farmed the gambling-tables to three brothers. The resources of these brothers are understood to be immense, but they have ere now undergone a thorough test. Of this Michael Angelo Titmarsh has given a characteristic version, in the following passage of one of his graphic productions, in which he gives the soubriquet of Lenoir to the proprietors.

"There came, at a time when the chief Lenoir was at Paris, and the reins of government were in the hands of his younger brother, a company of adventurers from Belgium, with a capital of three hundred thousand francs, and an infallible system for playing rouge-et-noir, and they boldly challenged the bank of Lenoir, and sat down before his croupiers, and defied them. They called themselves in their pride the Contrebanque de Noirburg. They had their croupiers and punters even as Lenoir had his; they had their rouleaus of Napoleons; they had their contrebanquist seal; and they began to play.

bling-table, borrow their money, or fleece them What family wretchedness, what personal degraat private gaming parties without mercy. In dation and guilt, what an amount of beggary and eager excitement this person pressed through the ruin, and how many cases of suicide, have sprung crowd, and, bending over the table, rapidly de- from this one source!" And as we went forth posited a handful of silver florins, until nearly through the streets of the town, as the golden every yellow line or open space had a stake light of the setting sun played on the flaxen locks placed upon it. His recklessness strikingly con- of a band of rosy children, whose merry laughter trasted with the caution of the other players. It rose upon the air, I could not but contrast their seemed as if he had set "his life upon a cast," happy, innocent glee with the ever-gnawing and and was resolved to take the bank by storm. morbid misery of the gamblers whom I had left Within a few minutes, however, his entire cash behind. was lost, and as the croupiers remorselessly gathered it with their little rakes into their glittering stores, he turned abruptly away. But whose are the small gloved hand and rounded arm which just at my left are suddenly thrust forward to obtain silver for a Napoleon-d'or, which she gives to the markers? I look round and find a tall and elegantly-dressed French lady standing at my side. Having received a number of silver florins in exchange for gold, she cautiously deposits one or two on the board, and with subdued excitement she watches the progress of the game. At length the silver pieces are all staked in succession, and are lost. And now, with nervous hand, she unfastens the spring of a French silk purse; other gold is produced and changed, until all is gone, and she, to, suddenly disappears. The game, however, has proceeded but a few minutes when our countryman returns, and stakes large sums with the same recklessness as before, and, after some alternations of success, with similar results. Nay, here is also the French lady again, returned with her silk purse recruited with gold pieces, and playing with greater excitement than ever; but, after some winnings, she too loses all. But as I lift my eyes I see two ladies enter the room, and stand for a time in the background. "As when two mighty giants step out of a Neither of them is young, but their whole bear-host and engage, the armies stand still in expecing is refined, and their faces are unmistakably English. At last they approach, and after looking on for a time, one after another, as under a sudden fascination, puts down money on the table. I had seen the fierce mastery of the passion for play over the man with pain and grief, but this fresh illustration of its power over the female heart filled me with indescribable sadness. Here were ladies of whose standing and rank their tout ensemble left no doubt, who in a strange land are guilty of conduct for which in their own country they would be hooted out of society. Oppressed and sick at heart, I hastily left the building. We walked through the beautiful grounds connected with the Kur Saal, and along the banks of the stream (now swollen by recent rains into a torrent) which flows through them. But all the while that gambling-table was in my thoughts; and as, from the little temple which crowns a rising ground, I looked on the gay flowers and graceful trees, on the fields white to the harvest, and the hunting-grounds of the reigning duke (whose revenues are largely drawn from the gambling-tables), I said to myself, "All these are beautiful and fair;

'But the trail of the serpent is over them all!'

tation, and the puny privates and commonalty remain quiet to witness the combat; so it is said that when the contrebanque arrived, and ranged itself before the officers of Lenoir-rouleau to rouleau, bank note to bank note, war for war, controlment for controlment―all the minor punters and gamblers ceased their peddling play, and looked on in silence round the verdant plain where the great combat was to be decided.

"Not used to the vast operations of war, like his elder brother, Lenoir junior, the lieutenant, telegraphed to his absent chief the news of the mighty enemy who had come down on him, asked for instructions, and in the mean while met the foeman like a man. The Contrebanque of Noirburg gallantly opened its campaign.

"The Lenoir bank was defeated, day after day, in numerous savage encounters. The tactics of the contrebanquist generals were irresistible, and they marched onward, terrible as the Macedonian phalanx. Tuesday, a loss of eighteen thousand florins; Thursday, a loss of forty thousand florins: night after night, the young Lenoir had to chronicle these disasters in melancholy dispatches to his chief. What was to be done? How was it to end?

"Far away at Paris, the elder Lenoir answered these appeals of his brother, by sending reinforcements of money. Chests of gold arrived for the bank. The prince of Noirburg bade his beleaguered lieutenant not to lose heart: he himself never for a moment blenched in the trying hour of danger.

and see how long she considers, how anxiously her eye wanders over the board, and then how cautiously at last she stakes it. Once or twice she wins, and the croupiers toss to her the spoil, and her pale cheek is flushed, and her dull eye kindles. But in a short time her little all is gone. She is here for the last time to-night. And to"The contrebanquists still went on victorious. morrow, and for many days to come, I shall see Rouleau after rouleau fell into their possession. her sitting apart on one or another of the garden At last the news came. The emperor had joined chairs scattered around, with cheeks paler than the grand army. Lenoir himself had arrived ever, and that thin form more wasted, and in her from Paris, and was once more among his chil- whole aspect downcast and half broken-hearted, dren, his people. The daily combats continued; as if the thoughts of a confiding husband or fond and still, still, though Napoleon was with the children far away at home oppressed her spirit. eagles, the abominable contrebanquists fought But look again. There is a mother and a young and conquered. Like Polyphemus, who only lady by her side. Can it be possible? Yes, that took one of his prisoners out of the cave at a is her daughter, and she is initiating that young time, and so ate them off at leisure, they con- girl into the mysteries of the gambling-table. tented themselves with winning so much before Who would like to marry a young woman thus dinner, and so much before supper, say five thou-trained—the daughter of such a mother as this? sand florins for each meal.

But who is this man who suddenly enters the

"At last there came one day when the contre-room with a little girl clinging to his side? His banquists had won their allotted sum, and were about to leave the tables which they had swept so often. But pride and lust of gold had seized upon the heart of one of these vainglorious chieftains; and he said, Do not let us go yet-let us win a thousand florins more!' So they stayed, and set the bank yet a thousand florins. The Noirburgers looked on and trembled for their prince.

"Some three hours afterward, a cheer, a mighty cheer, was heard around the windows of the palace; people rushed into each other's arms; men, women, and children cried and kissed each other. Croupiers who never feel, who never tremble, who never care whether black wins or red loses, took snuff from each other's boxes and laughed for joy; and Lenoir, the dauntless, the invincible Lenoir, wiped the drops of perspiration from his calm forehead, as he threw the enemy's last rouleau into his till. He had conquered.”

Thus far Mr. Titmarsh, who albeit not writing what he calls "a treaty of morals," yet is "wise" as well as "merry," when he adds: "If you lose, worthy friend, as possibly you will, at Lenoir's pretty games, console yourself by thinking that it is much better for you in the end that you should lose than that you should win. . . . For my part, I hope and pray that every honest reader of this volume who plays at M. Lenoir's table will lose every shilling of his winnings before he goes away."

But the loss of money does not eradicate the passion for play. To have evidence of this, let the reader enter with me the Kur Haus as these splendid chandeliers are being lit up in the grand saal, and let it be our last visit to such a scene. There is a motley crowd assembled round the roulette-table. There is a tall thin lady whom I see every morning imbibing the healing waters. This is not the first time she has been at the gambling-table. Her stock of cash is always small; she is never found at the rouge-et-noir table, where a Prussian thaler at least must be put down. The modest florin is admitted here;

dress and person are neglected, his face unwashed, his long and grizzled hair falls wildly over a forehead seamed and furrowed by deep wrinkles; his little girl is miserably dressed, and his rank seems but that of a peasant: amidst a throng so gay, what does he here? All ranks may play, and he, a degraded and inveterate gambler, can not live without this fatal excitement. He takes a place near the foot of the table, and draws forth a sum of money, from which he takes a florin from time to time and stakes it. He has a small card, like some other practiced hands at the table, and he carefully marks with a pin opposite red or black lines the results of each rotation of the wheel. For a time familiarity with the game seems to give him the advantage, and with calm satisfaction he rakes together his winnings into a heap, on which the little girl bends her glistening eyes. And there he sits until the evening closes, and in the end departs after a season of feverish excitement, such as has become the element of his being, having lost all. The face of that gambler, and that of his poor child (who was always with him, and who seemed as if she was the only one left of a shipwrecked and ruined family), haunt me to this hour.

But let us now pass into the inner apartment, and mark the group assembled at the rouge-etnoir table. Here is a more select class than is generally found playing at roulette; and, as at

W.

-, larger stakes are here deposited. Here are "Russians, Poles, French, English, Germans, with enormous mustaches or without them: the fire of Mammon always burning on his altars. and the doomed flies buzzing about them, and some already with scorched-off wings. It is a scene of external gayety, with all that is internally hollow, and rotten, and deceitful." The lights are burning brightly over-head; the players are nearly all seated, while a constantly shifting company of spectators forms an outer circle round the table. A young Indian officer, who last year ventured and lost, and has had wisdom and principle sufficient to take warning, stands by my

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