St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-09-26
DR.. Vail Sermonizes on an
Experience Of the Rough
Side Of Life.
Pen Picture Of a Peculiar In
StitutiOn in a Great Me- 3
tropolis. as
Tale of a Wanderep Who Had
DPifted to a Safe =
Harbor. Is
The Parable of the PrOdigal
Realized and Its Lessons y
Applied. 81

Rev. w. S. Vail took for text the
parable of the Prodigal Son, and
preached his sermon in illustration of it
from an experience that. he said, struck
him as so unique and peculiar that he
felt it necessary to make some account
of it for his congregation. He described
trip down street of the city Of San
Francisco Oh one night of the past sum-
mer-a street brilliantly lighted and
we'll lined i'll the basement quarters
with saloons-where he found the an
nouncement painted Oh the windows,
The Salvation Dive" Struck 10y curl
Osity, he went down and found there a
motley assemblage of people, who were
attending meeting of the Salvation
Army. After noting the various people
who were there-the miner. the sailor
and the adventurer-and after listen
ing to their rude experience. it
seemed to the preacher that these peo-
pie were telling over again the expert
ence of the prodigal, and he felt the
force all the more as he listened to the
young woman VINO led the meeting, and
who constantly appealed to the memo
rleS that these men carried with them
OF happier days, when life was kinder,
when nature, friends and conditions did
more for them, and when they, too, were
responsive to the calls of the nobler in
stincts of humanity.
The quickened interest of the preacher
once awoke, followed closely the his
tory of each mind. and it seemed to him
that there was a marked and remark
able uniformity in all that was said;
but his interest centered in a gray
haired EngliShman, who rose toward
the close of the meeting, and gave his
experience, which was a wide one, in
clear manner and i'll such way as to
impress one with the idea that he wasa
representative of the entire company.
He had been one of those
Restless Boys
who are like the Arne of BjOrnstern,
ways singing, What Shall l See if
Ever Go Over the Mountains High?"
One of those who think the home cage
where the bird-wings are clipped and
his flight hlndered-one of the restless
kind who must travel distant lands and
distant seas until he finds his Eldorado,
or his dinner of husks. lie carried us I
with him to the Liverpool docks. We
boarded the ship and saw his mother as
she kissed the strOng-limbed, FULL
cheSted, handsome boy. We watched
the ship drop down the river. and saw
her sailors among the shroudS; we
waited until she headed for the ocean,
and was on her way to distant Austria
liza. CF
Then he asked us to pause with him
and become acquainted with his hOme-1
sickness. He related ali the emotions
he felt as memory brought back his
past lapSes from kindness. He felt very
deeply the separation that he saw be-
fore him, and counted the rolling seas
that must hereafter stand as lock and
key to the door of home. But he
showed us how these feelings died
away. and how he grew eager TO see the
strange, distant land, with its forests
of trees peculiar to itself. its strange
animals and birds, its many things pc
culiar and attractive.
Landing us with him he tried to show
us the peculiar manner in which the
gold-craZe affected every one; especially
on account of the fact that gold was
found here in different way
from the finding of it elsewhere,
the nuggets being detached and often
hidden in loose soil. He was inflamed
by the fortune of the men who with one
worth S50, 900, and soon was eagerly fol-
lowing the rough ways Of the rude
camps. Then he related the influence
that men had on him who had been con-
nected with the penal colonies. Many
of them sent there had married the
transported women, and so
a Strange Population
had grown up. And this population was
bitter against the great world because
it was OutcaSt, and was strong by its
training and inherent gifts. All these
influences carried him to the point
where he was against all civilized order;
where he was reckless and took pride
in defying established laws; and where
that might come against him to do
their worst. He tasted of all
dissipation. He supposed he was flint
and steel against all good influences.
The first consciousness he had of any
thing that was not as it should be in his
relation to conditions came in the feel
ing of disgust with his accomplishment.
Then in one way or another he had con-
ceived pity for those who, like HIM
self, were madly rushing INTO life the
end of which they did not fully appre-
ciate, and so he was willing for these
reasons to stand up and give his teSti-
mOny.
Such was the history, said the
speaker, and such the conclusions of
the man: and the speaker felt that it
was also found, word for word, in the
New Testament parable: and he felt
that It was something worthy of study.
And then he sat down to see if there
was any confederation of this idea in
other lines of research. He was glad
to believe that the truth is written in
the very constitution of the world, and
that every one who is willing to teach
the young the ways of righteousness
could find that history written on all
the pages of human experience. For"
said the speaker, there is a law that is
called by modern scholars the
Law Of HhytbmIcai Action, s..
that fully bears out the experience of
these men who never heard of it, and of
the Biblical parable that declared it out
of the instructive knowledge of the /.
author. The steel cruiser lifts her flag
as she passes the guns of the fortress
exposes it to the breeze, and the breeze
gently waves it. showing the rhythm /,
OF motion. The tide that flows III to-
day, comes with musical reg
uiarity. and it is moved also
by lunar and solar attraction. The
movement of population has its period
OF action and repOse. or action and re-
oCtiOii. dl0 III Tie
same way. Our JOY seems boundless,
but it will most likely be followed by
misgiving and by depression. Our
grief comes in waves, in storms like the
sand storms of the desert. Then we are
quiet until it breaks out again. So, as
Mr.. Spencer has shown, is all our life,
all our experience. And he has shown
us again that when there comes the re-
turn of the past, as it always does come,
there comes with ii always modfica-
tion-the skepticism of our century diff
fering entirely from that of the former
century-the idea OF monarchy coming
to the surface, but greatly modified.
And here we want to make the APP
pllcatIOn to our present conditions.
There is a time when man doing and
living wrong is like man freezing in
rhe snow. He is unconscious Of fine