The Savannah morning news., 1901-06-10
1T STALKS ABROAD
SAYS REV. MIR. ANTHONY OF VICE
IN SAVANNAH.
OPENLY 1T FLAUNTS ITSELF
WITH NEVER AN EFFORT OR
THOUGHT OF CONCEALMENT.

the Parable of the ProdigaI Son.
Vaudeville Halls Arraigned-De-
basinG and Ruinous to Young Men.
No Post Graduate Course in De-
bauchery After "a Boy Finds Him
self in One of the Boxes with Cur
tains Drawn-OnIy Possible Fur
Their Step Is to the Condition of n
Tough
Rev. Bascom Anthony, preached to a
large congregation at Trinity Church last
night. His text was from St. Luke, 1872:
And the younger of them said to his
father, father, give me the portion of
goods that falieth 10 me. And he divided
unto them his living
The parable of the prodgal son was
the thread that ran through Mr.. An
thongs discourse, and an analogy was
drawn between the son of the Jew of old
and the sons of the men of to-day, show
ing that prodigality is still a vice, that
fathers are ready to forgive and forget,
and that the best resource of the prodi-
gals is to repent and forsake the ways
of evil.
ing upon the criticism of some one, that
the parable should rather be named that
of the beneficent father than that of the
prodigal son. Mr.. Anthony said he saw
nothing so remarkable in the conduct of
the father as to demand that the parable
be named for his action, as fathers are
commonly ready to receive a son who has
oh I,i e. 4
to begin anew A forgiving father. one
of the character of the Jew of the Bible
is not found any more infrequently than
a returning prodigal.
The pastor dwelt upon the youth of the
boy, who could not, he said, have been
more than 10 when he made his demand
upon his father His desire to receive
his portion of the goods that would come
to him upon a division being effected was
influenced by his depravities and his wish
to indulge in the enjoyment of excuses
toward which his tastes impelled him. He
wanted to emulate the example of disso-
Lutte men with whom he had come in
contact. He wished to be mannish, not
manly.
Being manly and being mannish are
widely divergent" said the pastor. 1T is
commendable in boys to be manly, but
when they get mannish they become dis
gushing. l suppose l saw not less than
fifty examples of that last night. Boys
were staggering with the air of men,
grown old or growing old long before their
time in those practices and excesses that
they should abominate.
That son in the Bible thought he
wanted liberty. 1t was not liberty at all
that he wanted, but libertinism. He
wanted freedom from restraint. The pa
rental yoke was irksome to him. He
wanted to break it. He could brook no
authority. He wanted free rein given
him for the indulgence of his wicked de-
sires, and it is this desire on the part of
some of the boys of to-day that cut them
loose from their home associations and
when they think they are getting their
liberty. plunges them into the depths of
depravity and libertinism.
That young man thought the chief end
of life was TO have a good time, when its
chief end is TO be good man. Money
making is not its chief end. The best men
in the world have never had time to make
money. They have had too many other
things to do. There are 500 young men in
Savannah, rebellious, impatient of the
slightest restraint. who, unless there may
come a take-up in their lives, will not
each make one-fourth of a man.
They do not wait until they get into
their teens. Before the teens are well
in sight, boys think they have mastered a
mighty and manly requirement in being
able to smoke cigarettes, chew tobacco,
spit red and cuss. After a little comes
another step-visitS to the vaudeville
halls, the most consuming sins for boys
that exist in this broad city. After awhile
they get into those boxes with the cur
tains drawn, and that is the last step. 1t
is the supreme degree. There is no post
graduate course. They have gone the
length. There is nothing worse beyond.
In their patronage of such places and their
Indulgence in the nefarious vices that sur
round them, they are offending and shock
ing society and running and debasing
themselves.
IF there is another step after these
6egradations of the vaudeville halls, it
is that to the condition of tough, a so
cial parah, an outcast a devishee who
has the world against him because he is
against the world. You know the fate of
such men. You see examples enough OF
them Forsake the evil course, turn to
the right. Give up any practices that may
lead to such a fate as befalls these toughs
AN overdose of poison in a barroom, a
death on bench in a public park, two
line obituary in the paper.
Somewhere in that boys rearing there
was a defect. Solomon said: Train up a
child in the way he should go and. when
he has grown old, he will not depart from
it 1 say this calmly and deliberately
for 1 believe it is so If your boy does not
lead the life he should it is because there
has been some defect in his rearing
There has been some little thing that you
have not noted. You or l may know it IS
our fault when we bring up child who
is not i'm every way up to the mark.
have known many good men who had not
reared good children, but it has been
their fault. 4 don't say that the parents
did not set the children good EXAMPLES
that they didn't pray for them, that they
didn't try, but l do say that 1t has been
the parents fault when a child has gone
astray.
Parents often start out all right.
They will exercise every care and show
every precaution with the first one or
two of their children, and then their
watchfulness will grow less marked. As
each child is reared, he is given privi-
leges that the older ones did not enjoy.
and the result is that the careiessness
of the parents, who depend upon the ex-
cellence of the examples set by their
earlier born. works for the ruin of the
younger ones.
Mothers can make or mar their chill
dren. one may be sickly and not able
to look after her children; another may
be a gad-about. a gossiper. who has no
greater object or aim than to pay calls,
leaving her children to care for them