e discussion on this important subject was continued and concluded, on
Saturday evening, by Messrs. Green and Freeman.

A man who can for a few minutes interest an audience so much in favour
of the vice of gambling, as to make them shut out its horrible
deformity, must possess more than ordinary powers, and we question much
whether, of the whole fraternity of gamblers, one could be found better
adapted for the Herculean task which Mr. Freeman set himself. That which
the mind is accustomed steadily to dwell upon, and upon which action is
had repeatedly, will scarcely want for self-justification--and while the
error of proceeding is reluctantly admitted, whatever may tend to
justify, however slightly, is eagerly seized upon and proclaimed. There
is scarcely an evil practice for which the doer may not raise up or
create reasons in justification, and plausible arguments may be made to
gloss over the most detestable and indefensible crimes.

A kind of Letheon is administered to the judgment by continual
progression in some improper path, till that which is to all others
palpably and painfully degrading becomes pleasant and eminently proper
in him who labours under the mental oblivion. Such a course Mr. Freeman
has trod, for while he admits that gambling is pernicious, he clamours
for the natural right which all men possess, to do it so long as they do
not meddle with others, and insists that it in no way gives occasion for
the exercise of legal power by the fact that he has played at cards, and
lost or won money. If it could be confined to individuals--if the
penalty of the crime was visited only upon the doer--- if the moral and
pecuniary destruction which gambling visits upon all who offer tribute
at its altar, went no farther than him who made the offering, then Mr.
Freeman would have a proper privilege, and would be right in saying that
a man violated no law by the practice of the nefarious profession. But
there are few, very few, we suppose, who are not connected by the ties
of blood, the bonds of matrimony, or the relation of father to child,
who are all affected by such degradation as the gambler visits upon
himself, and who feel the bitter poignancy of the stroke with greater
force than he whose heart has been gradually but surely abased. While a
man has a single relation or friend, he should not gamble; and if he
stood alone in the world, with no friend, the fear of the eternal
judgment should deter him from the com