Last of all, we have the society gambler. He is growing numerous to-day. He is the same person, whether clad in full dress in the drawing-room of the worldling, or in common dress around the fireside of the unchristian Church member. Like the professional gambler his instrument is "cards," and he can shake the "dice." His games are whist, progressive euchre, and sometimes poker. The stakes now are not money, but the gratification of excitement and the indulgence of passion. One, two, four hours go by almost unnoticed. Prizes are offered for the best player. As a Catholic priest told me after he had won a small sum with cards. Said he: "We just put up a few dollars, you know, to lend devotions to the game." So prizes are offered in the social gambling "to lend devotions to the game." It is under such circumstances as these that young men and young women receive their first lessons in card-playing. A passion for card-playing is called forth, developed, and must be satisfied, even though it takes one in low places among vile associates. "A Christian gentleman came from England to this country. He brought with him $70,000 in money. He proposed to invest the money. Part of it was his own; part of it was his mother's. He went into a Christian Church; was coldly received, and said to himself: 'Well, if that is the kind of Christian people they have in America, I don't want to associate with them much.' So he joined a card-playing party. He went with them from time to time. He went a little further on, and after a while he was in games of chance, and lost all of the $70,000. Worse than that, he lost all of his good morals; and on the night that he blew his brains out he wrote to the lady to whom he was affianced an apology for the crime he was about to commit, and saying in so many words, 'My first step to ruin was the joining of that card party.'"