THE GENEROUS AND TlNDER I-AND-MAIDEN OF ALL THE VIRTUES, 3 HISTO(PLICL ESUMEA BY A LOUISIANIAN. NEW ORLEANS: 1 8 7 7. I l1 l i. I' i.. I fi Th> Jupiter, the most eminent and high-toned of all the gods, passed through many tribulations and perils between the hour of his birth and his efficient and energetic manhood. His very existence was as uncertain as the turn of the Lottery wheel. His father, Saturn, was a debased and disreputable brute, accustomed to devouring his children as fast as Madame Rhea, his devoted wife, bore them to him, and Jupiter was the first of the family to reach man's estate. To save him for his magnificent destiny, while yet in his mother's womb, she plotted with the towers of heaven and earth, who aided her in her flight to the kingdom of Crete in search of childbl)ed; and there the child's first wail of pain re-echoed through the caves of the Egaean mountains. Tradition has been negligent of the devoted mother, but has loved to linger upon the thrilling incidents of the life of the puissant son. The generous daughter of Milissus, IKing of Crete, watched over the young feAlw, as did Pharaoh's daughter over the foundling of the bullruihes. She suckled him of the goat Amalthae, and he grew robust and hearty. As a memento, he broke off the horn of the maternal goat, and presented it, filled with fruits and herbs, to his generous patron. This became the Cornucopia of the ancients-the horn of plenty. It is represented as ever overflowing with treasures, palpable or unseen, for the benefit of humankind. One may search the Encyclopedias of heraldry in vain for this emblem on the family escutcheons of the blue bloods of christendom; but there is good reason to believe it was once selected as the appropriate emblem of our own fruitful and generous Louisiana. On the oldest map of the French Colony on the shelves of Mr. Gayerreos new Historical Society, bearing date more than a century and a half ago, it may be found by those curiously interested. It may be briefly described as a simple shield with a ducal coronet in middle chief, beneath which, resting upon a block of solid gold the horn of plenty pours out its treasures. It is supported by two athletic aboriginal sons of the soil and flecked by the fler de li8. The field is green, which, in the language of heraldry represents youth, love and fruitfulness. This it appears with royal sanction was the emblem of primitive Louisiana, suggested by her known contributions to commerce and those the romance and tradition of her earliest writers Ii .1 Il l; II i, Pi it If ti IV iI i 1 & -3 hinted as among the hidden resources she stood ready to pour into the lap of Europe. Not unwisely, perhaps, our realistic later fathers ignored the ancient emblem and substituted the Pelican and her nest of idle, hungry, clamoring young, feeding upon the life of the mother, as the emblem of the State of Louisiana-fit emblem, perhaps, of a government where the uttermost resources of the industrial classes are strained to feed her idle, hungry, clamoring office-holding parasites. Without discussing, therefore, the lessons of the pelican, let it be ours to trace the horn of plenty which has poured out its blessing in our beloved State of Louisiana and City of the gleaming Crescent-that horn of plenty which, taking the shape of the Lottery wheel has done more than any single instrumentality therein for the promotion of education, internal improrvements, charity and religion. In the earliest days of territorial Louisiana, after the American flag had been raised over this city, but before her admission into the sisterhood of States, the Lottery was first enlisted in the cause of Christ. In the summer of 1805 a few of the English speaking inhabitants came together and agreed to form themselves into a Protestant congregation. Weekly meetings were held in the month of June of that year, and on Sunday the 8lSth, it was decided by ballot, that an Episcopal church should be organized and known as Christ's Church. The Episcopal vote was forty-five out of a total of fifty-three; and the arigument used that seemed to have the greatest effect in settling the controversy was that the ceremonies and ritual of the Episcopal faith were more in harmony with those of Father Antoine's Church at Place d'Arms, and therefore less calculated to excite hostility as a new religious experiment. Fortunately no hostility towards the new church was manifested, save perhaps the formal protest of the Catholic Archbishop, and this was simply an objection to the new church of the heterodox being erected within the then city limits. It was courteously addressed to the Mayor and Aldermen, and by them as courteously read and ordered filed. The Reverend Philander Chase, who had been invited to assume charge of tbf new congregation, preached his first sermon on the 5th of November, 1805, the authorities kindly offering the use of the Principal for the occasion. In a few weeks, however, services came to be permanently held at Col. Freeman's house, on Royal street, the officiating clergyman opening a school, meantime, to aid him in his scanty support. The congregation grew apace. A lot was after a while secured on Canal street, at the eastern corner of Bourbon, and in the year 1810 a petition was made to the Legislative Council for authority to raise by Lottery a fund sufficient to pay for the erection of a church. Let us digress long enough to copy from the Louisiana Gazette of April 23d. 1810, the following extract: I i i i I i -4 "At an election held at Christ Church this morning for Wardens and Vestrymen for the said church,,the following gentlemen were elected; "Wardens-Doctors Dow and Leonard. "Vestrymen-Benjamin Morgan, Jos. McNiel, Beverly Chew, Jos. Saul, G. W. Morgan, R. D. Sheppard, A. R. Ellery, D. Urquhart, S Packwood, Thos. Elmes, John Taylor, Alfred Hennen and J. C. Bartlett." The legislative body took prompt and sufficient action, in the passage of the following: "AN ACT " To authorize the Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of Christ's Church, in the County of Orleans, to raise the sum of ten thousand dollars by a Lottery. "The Rector, Wardens and ~estrymen and others, by their petition to the Legislature of this Territory, having prayed for an act to authorize them to raise, by Lottery, the sum of ten thousand dollars, for the purpose of erecting a place of public worship for the said Church: " SECTION 1. Be it therefore enacted by the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Orleans, in General Assembly convened, That the Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of Christ's Church in the county of Orleans be authorized and empowered, to raise by a Lottery the said sum of ten thousand dollars, for the purpose of building a place of public worship for said Church. "SEc. 2. And be itfurther enacted, That the said Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen shall choose five discreet persons who shall act as managers of said Lottery, to make a scheme for said Lottery, to sign and sell the tickets, superintend the drawing thereof, and to pay the prizes drawn therein; which said managers shall give bond to the Governor of the Territory, to be by him approved, in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful performance of the duties required of them by this act. "SSEc. 3. And be it further enacted, That the Lottery aforesaid shall be divided into three classes, if deemed expedient by the Managers thereof, who shall have power to detroy all the unsold tickets of the class about to be drawn and to reduce the prizes to be drawn for therein, in proportion to the number destroyed; and to commence and carry on a second and third class until the before-mentioned sum of ten thousand dollars shall be raised by said Lottery. THOS. URQUHART, Speaker of the House of Representatives. PRE. FOUCHER, President of the Legislative Council, pro tempore. Approved March 6th, 1810. I"~ ~WILLIAM C. C. CLAIBORNE, Governor of the Territory of Orleans. I -5 The promulgation of this act was speedily followed by the publication in the prints of that day of the following: " SCHESIE OF THE FIRST CLASS OF CHIRIST CHURCIIH LOTTERY, As authorized by an act of the Legislature-to-wit: 1 Prize of - --------------------------------------- $ 3,000 2 ditto....-...-$1,500.... —---------------- 3,000 4 ditto ------------------- 500 -—...... 2,000 20 ditto... —----------------- 100..... —---------—. —-—.. 2,000 100 ditto ------------------- 20... —---- ------------ 2,000 600 ditto. —----------------- 5....: —---------- 3,000 The last drawn ticket on the 2d, 4th and 6th days 1,500 drawing, 500 dollars each. -- The last drawn ticket on the 8th and 9th days each, 2000 tiooo~~~~~~~~~~~.. 2,000 ~1000. The last drawn ditto on the 10th day................. - 1,500 1273 blanks, about [ 3-4 blanks to a prize. 2000 tickets at $10 each -—...........................$20,000 To draw two hundred tickets each day, and the prizes to be paid in ten days after the drawing is finished, by one of the Managers, subject to a deduction of twenty per cent. Prizes not demanded within six monthis after the drawing is finished, to be considered as relinquished for the benefit of the Church. Tickets to be had of the subscribers, ROBERT DOW, BENJ. MORGAN, RICHARD RELF, GEO. W. MORGAN, R. D. SHEPHERD.' The Lottery was drawn, the money was obtained, and the cornerstone of the edifice was laid with prayers and songs of praise and appropriate wremonies on the 27th day of July, 1815. We quote again from the Louisiana Gazette of August 1, of that year: "On Thursday last, the twenty-seventh ultimo, the cornerstone of a protestant church was laid in this city. "We hope that piety and morals will flourish under the benign influence of the Great Author of all good; that the people will acknowledge the great and important truth that "it is righteousness alone that exalteth a nation." The Reverend Philander Chase did not stay to see his work completed. In 1811 he resigned and went away. Now and then the congregation was addressed by itinerant preachers, and at 1* I I i -6 different places. Rev. Sela Paine preached in the United States Court Room on Royal street; Rev. Mr. Hale and Rev. Wm. Winans at the Government House; Rev. James F. Hull, Elder Lorenzo Dow and others at Mr. Paulding's commodious residence. Even Father Antoine of sainted memory-who never refused the last offices of the church to a dying sinner-permitted-Rev. Mr. Johnson to preach in the Cathedral of St. Louis, the only condition imposed being that the address should be in French, so that his hearers could comprehend it. What a commentary was this act of the good old priest on the religious development of this the last quarter of the nineteenth century! But this was the primitive days of religion as of society in the southwest. The work of evangelization of this country had hardly commenced. There obtained a crude code of morals, based upon revelation, that, like the unwritten common law, passed from mouth to mouth, and sufficed for the welfare of souls. The priest in the robes of his sacred office marched with the freemasons to the tomb of the deceased brother, and the square and compass gleamed upon the surplice and stole as they pointed the departed soul on its way to the full fruition of its great desire-the source of Living Light. The Holy Word had not come to be viewed too cheaply then. Creedsmen had not gone to quarreling over the meaning of its precepts, and the scoffer had not learned to doubt its generous promises or blaspheme its sacred names. Under date of April 25, 1815, Mr. Alfred Hennen, lately gathered to his fathers, but then Secretary of the Board of Managers of the Louisiana Bible Society, submitted a report ftom which the following extract is taken: "Some of the Tennessee militia when passing through Nashville on their way to New Orleans, had enquired in vain for a bible; not one was to be found for sale; and in the month of December last a similar enquiry was publicly made in this city by a gentleman from the Amite; nor is there at this moment a bible to be purchased in any bookstore in the city of New Orleans." The Church was speedily built, and within it walls the Word of Holiness was taught by those eminent divines, Hull, Barlow and Brownell. The Church stood for years, the only sanctuary of protestant worshippers. In thc capacious yard stood the handsome monument erected by the State to commemorate the public worth and private virtues of Louisiana's first American Governor, Wm. C. C. Claiborne. Both have disappeared before the hungry tooth of decay, and the grand palaces of trade stand now on the historic site. Christ Church has been rebuilt twice since then,-in 1837 on the old ground, and ten years later on a new site the present building was erected. Such in brief is the history of the Mother Episcopal Church of - 7 Louisiana and the Southwest, wherein thousands of anxious souls have learned " How the narrow road is easiest trod, And how genteelest worms may worship God; How sacred rites may bear a wordly grace And self-abasement wear a haughty Face; How sinners, long in folly's mazes whirled With pomp and splendor may renounce the world; How with all saints hereafter to appear, Yet quite escape the vulgar portion here." When in 1805 the ballot was taken to determine the denomination to be adopted by the first protestant congregation, there were seven presbyterian votes cast out of the 53. The believers in the "sterner creed" worshipped with their Episcopalian brothers a few years, until their own numbers increased so that they were justified in organizing a church society of their own. In February, 1818 they met at Mr. Paulding's house, organized, and sent for a preacher. In the following December arrived the Rev. Sylvester Larned, "The good young priest with the Raphael face" whose name and fame have survived the wear and tear of time and are still cherished with pious, almost worshipful remembrances. The pulpit of Christ's Church was given to him for an extra service after regular hours. It was half-past four o'clock in the evening of the last Sunday in December, when the holy man raised his eyes to heaven in prayer, and the tremulous tones of his mellow voice were wafted out for the first time upon the expectant and hungry ears of an immense throng who had come to listen to the boy-preacher, the fame of whose singular and overpowering eloquence and surpassing beauty of person had preceded him from his western home. In the following July the pulpit was ready for him in the new church "opposite Gravier's square," but his ministrations were as brief as they were brilliant. With the going out of the month of August in the following year, in the height of a fearful pestilence wherein he had exhausted himself, ministering consolation with prayer and purse by day and night at the bedside of the sick and dying, this noble life ebbed away; lthe most eloquent tongue in America was paralyzed in death. Meantime the new church was laboring under severe financial embarrassments, It had incurred debts it could not pay. The city government-which had advanced thousands of dollars to aid the French refugees from San Domingo while it had refused to furnish or be responsible for the price of vegetables for Wilkinson's army, rotting and dying of the scurvy at Terre-aux-Boeufswas oppressing the church for money due. The vestry of the church, alive to their responsibilities, and fearful lest the labor of years of love should go for naught, besought the Legislature for relief, which was promptly granted in the following act: ii -8"AN ACT "Toanuthorize the Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church and Congregation in the city and parish of New Orleans, to raise the suam of thirty thousand dollars by a Lottery, and for other purposes therein mentioned. "SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and louse of Representatives of the State of Louisiana in General Assembly convened, That the Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church and Congregation in the city and parish of New Orleans, be authorized and empowered to raise by a Lottery the said sum of thirty thousand dollars, for the purpose of enabling them to extinguish the debt in which the said church and congregation are incumbered. "SFc. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said Trustees shall choose three discreet persons who shall act as managers or commissioners of said Lottery, to make a scheme for said Lottery, to sign and sell the tickets, superintend the drawing thereof; to pay the prizes drawn therein, and they shall possess fill power to do all the things for the more complete execution of the objects contemplated by this act. "SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said Trustees are hereby authorized and empowered to sell or in any other manner to dispose of the privilege and authority granted by this act to any person or persons on such terms as by them may be deemed most expedient. Approved March 22, 1822. Approved March 22, 1822. The spire reaching highest into the heavens of any church edifice in the southwest, and the fame which covers two hemispheres of the learned divine who occupies its pulpit, bear testimony most eloquent to-day to the success of this invocation of the Lottery Wheel- the modern cornucopia. In 1828 the Legislature granted to MIessrs. J. W. Smith, Lucius C. Dnncan, John A. Merle, Bordier, E. P. Sorbe, T. Roumage, D. Frederick, B. Chew, F. Frey, Theodore Nicolet, T. T. Sigg, H. Schmidt, Thomas Toby and P. H. Clamageran, for and in behalf of the French Evangelical Church Society in New Orleans, the right to raise by Lottery the sum of $30,000 for the purpose of erecting a suitable building for public worship. The modest chapel was erected near Rampart on Bienville street, and for many years a learned and eloquent divine ministered to the care of his confidiung flock. The society seems not to have survived the edifice however, for after a while the congregation scattered, while the building stands to this day as a shelter for students of the vaulting bar and flying trapeze. One would fain linger over the interesting details of this record. But enough has been said to show the inestimable services of the Lottery Wheel to the cause of religion-enough to prove in fact that the history of the planting of the Evangelical Church in New Orleans is the biography of the Lottery-that they went hand in hand, blessed and blessing. i I iI ii I i i II I II iI II i i ii i i i i i I I -9 Not in New Orleans alone was the benign influence of the Lottery invoked for the cause of Christ. In 1823 the protestant society at Baton Rouge asked and received permission to raise the necessary funds by Lottery to build their Church. And not alone the Church of the Evangelists gathered up the wealth that flowed from this cornucopia. The Apostolic Church was always equally ready to invite the same aid in rearing its magnificent edifices. In 1826 the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis of Natchitoches was authorized by the Legislature to raise twenty thousand dollars by Lottery "to enable them to erect a church." A year later the trustees of the Roman Catholic Church in East Baton Rouge were authorized to raise a sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars " fbr the purpose of repairing said church or erecting another." The record seems inexhaustible of the good offices bestowed by the wheel of fortune, which proves in the history of our State to have been the generous, tender handmaiden of all the virtues. Religion's earnest and steadfast friend, she turned aside to pour her wealth into other empty laps. The cause of educationbefore the State had by appropriate legislation made itself the ward of the coming citizen by adopting a public school systemshared in the treasures the Lottery dispensed with a lavish hand. In 1813 the regents of the University of Orleans were authorized to raise fifty thousand dollars by means of two lotteries. In 1825 the Legislature granted to the New Orleans Library Society the right to maintain a Lotuery for five years, or until the sum of twenty thousand dollars was raised. A year or two later, the corporators of the Ouachita School Society were permitted to'raise by lottery the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars for the purposes of education. In 1828 the same right and for the same amount and purpose, was granted to the Covington Academy. The same year the Lyceum of the parish of St. Charles was allowed to raise twenty thousand dollars in the same manner. The Lottery Wheel built bridges, made highways for travel, and rendered navigable bayous and running streams. Let us make a few more extracts from the record: A statute of March 17, 1813, appointed John W. Leonard, William Spiller, Joseph Thomas, Chandler Lindsley and Thomas J. Davidson commissioners to raise $30,000 by lottery for the purpose of improving the road leading from Springfield to the tollbridge of Alexander Bookter on the Tickfaw river. An act of March 5, 1814, authorized Alfred Hennen of Orleans, Henry Johnson of Donaldsonville, Agricola Fuselier, Peter Regnier and John Wilkinson of the Attakapas, to raise by lottery the sum of $15,000 for the improvement of the navigation of the canal leading from the Lafourche to the lake. Another act of the same date instructed George Matthews, Henry Clements, William Miller, Levi Wells and Leonard Comp i I i -10 - ton to raise by Lottery $15,000 to improve Bayou Boeuf through Bayou Lamoreux to Red River, and also the navigation of Bayou Boeuf from Bayou Lamoreux down to the junction of Bayou Crocodile with Bayou Boeuf. An act of March 12, 1816, granted authority to Auguste Louallier, James Still, John M. Debuillon, Luke Lesassier and William Haslitt to raise $10,000 by Lottery for the purpose of forming a navigable canal around the raft of the Atchafalaya and in clearing the navigation in the waters of Bayou Cortableu. An act of March 15, 1822, provided for the raising of $8,000 by Lottery for the improvement of the Bayou Lafourche, and appointed as commissioners for the purpose, David A. Randall Carlier d'Outremer and Narcisse Landry, of Ascension; St. Julien de Tournillon and Andre LeBlaic, of Assumption and Joseph Nicholas, of the interior of Lafourche. The Trustees of the town of St. Francisville were authorized to raise by Lottery the sum of $10,000 for the purpose of improving the road and levee from the top of the hill leading from St. Francisville to the Bayou Sara landing. The artisan and inventor was not forgotten: In 1828 the Legislature authorized Henry Lainhart to raise $6,000, or so much as may be necessary, quoting the language of the law, "for the construction and the application to the use of a steam engine made according to his new mode of generating steam and applying it to the use of machinery."' Even the proud State herself was not above wooing the favors of the Lottery Wheel On the 22d of March, 1822 an act of the Legislature became a law wherein the Governor was authorized to contract with Henry L. Runyan " on such terms as he may deem expedient," to raise by lottery $ 200,000 for the use of the State. Sixteen years before, the city council, finding the corporation environed with debt, asked permission of the Legislature to raise $ 30,000 by the same means. A Lottery advertisement of those early days may not be devoid of interest: "LOTTERY NOTICE. he 33d and 34th drawings of the Literature, the 7th drawing of the Pennsylvania, and 19th drawing of the National Lotteries are received, and may be examined free of expense at WV A IT E'S IN CANAL STREET. Opposite Air. Beale's Hotel. Where Tickets in the Episcopal and Presbyterian Church Lottery, may be obtained for $10 each." i I I iI i -11 Here is another, like the preceding, bearing date of 1822: "20,000 Dollars for $10. GRAND STATE LOTTERY. Now drawing in this city, and only 12 days drawing from the commencement. GRAND SCHEME: 1 Prize of. —-------- $20,000 Dollars. 1......... 10,000 Dollars. 2...... —---------------- 5,000 Dollars. 1.. —------------------ 2,500 Dollars. 10 -------------------- 1000 Dollars. 15.. —------------------- 500 Dollars. 20........ —-----------------—. 100 Dollars. 200....... —-------------------- 20 Dollars. &c. &c. ** Cash advanced for prizes as soon as drawn. Present price of tickets 10 dollars, shares in proportion. The citizens of New Orleans have now an opportunity of pUrchasing tickets in a lottery now drawing under their own immediate inspection, and as the object of the ~ame is of the most laudable nature, it is presumed that every person in this wealthy city, intends being the owner of a ticket-they are therefore invited to make immediate application for the same at WATEIRMAN'S LOTTERY AND EXCHANGE OFFICE, 65 CHARTRES ST." This exhibit needs no sermon to accompany it. It tells its own story of the great usefulness of the Lottery to enterprises weak and unfriended. It does not tell the whole story perhaps, but it bears testimony enough to shield the Lottery from much of the obloquy and reproach it receives from the unthinking and fault-finding. In the past ten years, when the cause of public education has been embarrassed by defaulting tax payers and absconding tax collectors, and distress like a hungry wolf walked by the side of the poor teaeber day by day, the horn of plenty has poured out the wealth that brought gladness and relief to the suffering ones. NEARLY A HALF OF A MILLION OF DOLLARS, has been turned by the Lottery wheel into the strong box of the Statetta give the blessings of education to the children of the poor, and thus make them better and worthier citizens of these States.. . i 0 I I I i v - 12 So, too, has the available fund for the relief of pain and suffering in the public hospital come from the same time-honored source. The Lottery has done its work faithfully in the past, and the record is historical. Even those who have been gathered to their fathers have had occasion to call its methods blessed. Even those who know it not have partaken of the riches of the flowing cornucopia. The Lottery of which we speak has been that of Louisiana. It has sapped the country of none of its wealth. It has not sent much away to bring little back. It has deported no gold beyond the seas to aid in maintaining on the soil of the new world the standard which represents a "river of blood flowing between margins of gold." Its benefits have rested upon all alike. As Portia rendered mercy: "It is twice blessed: It blesses him that gives and him that takes." Enough that we have called attention to two points: 1. That the cornucopia was the ancient emblem of Louisiana. 2. That the cornucopia, modernized into the Lottery Wheel, has poured out more blessings upon the church, the school-house, the hospital and the highway, in the early as in the later life of Louisiana, than have come in the same period from any other source. L. Graham, hook and Job Pi:-lter, 73 Camp St. 4d floor.) N. 0. I i I ,, 1 ii I iI I I i I i II II i iiI !I I -w : 1. 'k.