“Not too strong,” said his brother. “There are but three ways of getting anything from another person’s possession honestly: you must either earn it, as a man gets money from his master by working for it; or you must give a fair equivalent for it, either so much money as it is marketably worth, or something in exchange which will be worth as much to the person from whom you are getting the thing as the thing he is parting with is worth to him; or you must have it as a free gift from its owner. Now a raffle fulfils none of these conditions. Take the case of this mare Rosebud. Suppose you pay your guinea, and prove the successful person. You have not earned Rosebud, for you have not given a hundred guineas’ worth of labour for her. You have not given a fair equivalent, such as an equally good horse or something else of the same value, nor an equivalent in money, for you have given only a guinea for what is worth a hundred guineas. Nor have you received her as a free gift.”
“I quite agree with you, Amos,” said his father; “you have put it very clearly. I think these raffles, in which you risk your little in the hope of getting some one else’s much, are thoroughly unwholesome and dangerous in principle, and are calculated to encourage a taste for more serious gambling.”
“But stop there, please, dear father,” said Walter. “When a man gives his guinea for what is worth one hundred guineas, or when a man bets say one to ten, if he wins, does not the loser make a free gift to him? There is no compulsion. He stakes his bigger sum willingly, and loses it willingly.”
“Nay, not so,” said Amos. “He is not willing to lose his larger sum; he makes no out-and-out gift of it. In laying his larger sum against your smaller, he does so because he is persuaded or fully expects that he shall get your money and not lose his own.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mr Huntingdon again.
Walter looked discomfited, and not best pleased. Then Miss Huntingdon said, in her clear gentle voice, “Surely dear Amos is right. If the principle of gambling is in the raffle, though in a seemingly more innocent form, how can it be otherwise than perilous and wrong to engage in such things? Oh, there is such a terrible fascination in this venturing one’s little in the hope of making it much, not by honest work of hand or brain, nor by giving an equivalent, nor by receiving it as the free-will loving gift of one who gladly does us a kindness. What this fascination may lead to is to be seen in that terrible paradise of the gambler, Monaco, on the shore of the lovely Mediterranean. I have lately heard a most thrilling account of what is to be seen in that fearfully attractive palace of despair. Lovely gardens are there, ravishing music, an exquisite salon where the entranced players meet to throw away fortune, peace, and hope. At first you might imagine you were in a church, so still and serious are the deluded mammon-worshippers. And what follows? I will mention but one case; it is a well-attested one. Two young Russian ladies, wealthy heiresses, entered the gaming-hall. For a while they looked on with indifference; then with some little interest; then the spell began to work. The fascination drew them on; they sat down, they played. At first they won; then they lost. Then they staked larger and larger sums in the vain hope of recovering the gold which was rapidly slipping away from their possession. But they played on. Loss followed loss; they still went on playing. Then they staked the last money they had, and lost. Bankrupt and heart-broken, they betook themselves to the cliffs that overhang the Mediterranean, and, hand in hand, plunged into the sea and were lost. Oh, can that be innocent which in any degree tends to encourage this thirst for getting gain not in the paths of honest industry, but in a way which God cannot and does not bless?”
She paused. Walter hung down his head, while his features worked uneasily. Then he slowly raised his face, and said, “I suppose I’m wrong; but then, what is to be done? Gregson will ask me about it, and what am I to say? ‘Brother Amos disapproves of raffles;’ will that do? I can just fancy I can see him and Saunders holding their sides and shaking like a pair of pepper-boxes. No, it won’t do; we can’t always be doing just what’s right. If Amos don’t go in for the raffle, I think I must, unless I wish to be laughed at till they’ve jeered all the spirit out of me.”
Amos made no answer, nor did Miss Huntingdon; but as Walter looked towards her, with no very happy expression of countenance, she quietly laid one hand across the other. He saw it and coloured, and then, with a disdainful toss of the head, hurried away. But the arrow had hit its mark. As Miss Huntingdon was about to prepare for bed, she heard a low voice outside her door saying, “May a naughty boy come in?” and Walter was admitted. The tears were in his eyes as he kissed his aunt and sat down. “I am waiting for the rod,” he said, half mournfully and half playfully. “I deserve it, I know. I was wrong. I was unkind to Amos. I behaved like a cowardly sneak. Now, dear auntie, for a moral hero that isn’t like me.”
“Dear boy,” said his aunt, placing her hands lovingly on his head, “you were wrong, I know; but you are right now, and I think you mean to keep so. I have a beautiful instance here of moral courage, just to the point; I was reading about it a few minutes ago.
“A young man once called on a most earnest and experienced minister of the gospel, Dr Spencer of Brooklyn, New York, about his difficulties in his earthly calling. He was salesman in a dry-goods store, and was required by his employer to do things which he felt not to be right. For instance, he must learn to judge by the appearance of any woman who entered the store, by her dress, her manner, her look, the tone of her voice, whether she had much knowledge of the article she wished to purchase; and if she had not, he must put the price higher, as high as he thought she could be induced to pay. With one class of customers he must always begin by asking a half or a third more than the regular price; and if any objection was made, he was to say, ‘We have never sold it any cheaper,’ or, ‘You cannot buy that quality of goods any lower in the city.’ In fact, a very large portion of the service expected of him was just to lie for the purpose of cheating. When he expressed his doubts about this being right, his employer laughed at him. ‘Everybody does it,’ he said; ‘You can’t be a merchant without it. All is fair in trade. You are too green.’—‘I know I am too green,’ the young man said to the minister sorrowfully; ‘for I was brought up in the country, and don’t know much of the world. My mother is a poor widow, but I don’t believe she would think it right for me to do such things.’—‘And do you think it right?’ asked the minister.—‘No; but my employer is a church member, and yet I believe it would make my old mother very bad if she knew I was doing such things every day.’—‘Well, then,’ said the good pastor, ‘take your mother’s way, and refuse his.’—‘I shall lose my place then.’—‘Well, lose your place; don’t hesitate a moment; tell your employer you will do all that you honestly can, but that you were not engaged to deceive, to cheat, to lie.’—‘If I should say that, he would tell me to be off.’—‘Very well; be off, then.’—‘I have no other place to go to, and he knows it.’—‘No matter; go anywhere, do anything—dig potatoes, black boots, sweep the streets for a living, sooner than yield for one hour to such temptation.’—‘But if I leave that place so soon, it will make my old mother feel very bad; she will think that I am getting unsteady; she will be afraid that I am going to ruin.’—‘Not a bit of it; tell her just the truth, and you will fill her old heart with joy. She will thank God that she has got such a son, and she will send up into heaven another prayer for you, which I would rather have than all the gold of Ophir. Now, go back to your store, and do all your duties most faithfully and punctually without lying. If your employer is not a fool, he will like you the better for it, and prize you the more, for he will at once see that he has got one clerk on whose truthfulness he can depend. But if the man is as silly as he is unconscientious, he will probably dismiss you before long. After that, you may be sure that God will open a way for you somewhere.’—The young man took Dr Spencer’s advice, and lost his place, but soon found another, and afterwards became an eminent and prosperous merchant, while his old employer became bankrupt in about seven years after he left him, and had to toil on in disgraceful poverty. Dr Spencer adds, ‘I attribute this young man’s integrity, conversion, and salvation to his old mother, as he always fondly called her.’