.

First, There has been no period in my life, prior to 1846, when I could
dare to lay before the world what I contemplate doing at the present
time. It will be long remembered by many, that in August, 1842, I
renounced a profession, in which I had worse than squandered twelve
years, the sweet morning of my life. In doing so, I knew I must, of
necessity, experience deep mortification, in a personal exposure, which
would attend me through life.

Gambling, with all its concomitants, had taken full possession of my
depraved nature. Thus it was that I, like all wicked men, refused to
"come to the light," and I feared to oppose a craft so numerous as the
one of which I was a professed member. Well did I know that I was
carrying out a wrong and wicked principle. Conviction produced
reflection. After a careful deliberation of the whole subject, I
declared with a solemn oath, that, by the assistance of Almighty God, I
would renounce for ever a profession so ruinous in its every feature.
Immediately I felt the band severed, and my misgivings were scattered to
the winds. My former companions laughed at me. They scouted the idea,
that one so base as I should ever think of reformation. It moved me not.
My credit, I found, failed, after it was known that I had quit gambling.
A thousand different conjectures attended so strange a proceeding on the
part of one in my circumstances. Why should I abandon card-playing,
destroy valuable card plates, and lose their still more profitable
proceeds, return moneyed obligations, which would have secured me an
independent fortune? These things were a matter of surprise with the
cool and deliberate patrons of vice, and especially with many, who,
though they were often covered with a garb of outward morality, were
full of rottenness within. Some, who pass for moral and religious
persons, have in this thing exhibited a moral obliquity that has often
astonished me.

From a careful examination, I have learned the lamentable fact, that the
most prominent opposers of moral reforms are composed of two classes,
THE HARDENED SINNER, who makes money his god, and THE EXTREMELY
IGNORANT. Let not the reader understand, however, that I suppose there
are not ignorant rich men as well as poor--the latter have their share
of bad men, and so also have the former--but that vice and ignorance are
common to both.

In the year 1843, I commenced lecturing against the fearful vice of
gambling, for no other reason th