The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-04-09
DR. DUNCAN SPOKE
ABOUT MISTAKES
Sermon to Young Men at the
First Methodist
PARABLE OF PR0DlGAL SON
A Common Mistake of Young Men To
Think That Liberty Means
Freedom From All
Restraint.

The Rev. DR.. ]. A. Duncan preached at
the First Methodist church last night on
Mistakes" The sermon was one of a
series especially to young men and the
big church was crowded
His text was taken from Luke 151l-24
DR.. Duncan said in part:
Talking about mistakes is never a very
pleasant matter, and yet in every walk
In life mistakes are so easily made that
1t is we'll to be warned against them as
far as possible. Instead, however, Of
taking up individual mistakes [ think
that 1t will be more profitable for us to
take those things out of which individual
mistakes grow. and see If we can IN this
way so fortify ourselves that we will
be saved the humiliation of making blum
ders that may cripple us for life.
| This wonderfully story has possibly been
as much misquoted, and as much mlsun-
derstood as any parable the Master ever
uttered. Its very name. that of the prod
igal son, has been against it. OF course
this name for the parable gives a side of
the truth of its teachings. but only one
side The real truth seems to me to be
SO much bigger than this.
1t is not simply the story of bad boy
who went away from home, got into
trouble, and then came back It is the
great story of Gods child in the world,
misunderstanding the meaning of his own
life coming to himself and seeing that
the fathers house is his only real home.
Let us look at it In this light. and see
how it belongs to our life. In the story
before us the younger son says to his
father: Give me The portion of good
that falleth to me-" lie makes the first
great mistake of life here, in thinking
that life consists of what a man has.
One of the first words a child learns
is mine" And all through life this
idea of having things that belong to one
is a dominant motive. 1t is not wrong
desire, the desire to possess, 1t is only
wrong when we Shink that possession is
all. When a man begins to think that
to have money is to live, then he has
made his first great blunder, and the blum
der out Of which many another can easily
grow. He is mistalSing the show for
the substance.
Money is worth to you just as much as
your capacity to make it useful. If your
idea Of money is to gild yourself, to make
others stand around and look at you as
| they would at some statue, to puff your
self out with pride and make men enVlous
of the position you have attained be-
cause you have money, then you have
made tremendous mistake.
Ereedon From Restraint
Another mistake this young man makes,
| and which many young man makes, is
to think that life could only be enjoyed
when there was entire freedom from re-
straint. He took what had been given
him and went into far country. 1t was
his. so he argued, and what did any one
! have to do with what he did with it.
He did not care to spend it at home
where others might feel t at they had
the right to criticise his way of using
it, He wanted to be free, and freedom
to him meant to do as he pleased with
out any reference to any one save to
himself.
Freedom is the most precious of all hui
man Blooms, but when it is msused, be-
cause it is so great a thing, 1t is the
greatest possible curse The mistake of
youth, and 1t is often made, Is to sup
pose that freedom means to be away from
| all restraint. You can never have such
freedom, because your life is necessarily
in touch with the life of others. l sup
pose that If man were upon, a desert
with no other being, and could support
his life there, he might do as he pleased
but he would then care precious little
| what he did.
| What is the result of this conception
of life, the conception that life consists
| in possessions, and in the liberty to do
| as one pleases. 1t is almost invariably
| this-frst waste, then want. The small
| or great streak of vanity that lies in all
| of us is pretty likely to come to the
front when we really have the chance
to make a show. When there is nothing
| of outward pressure to restrain u.s. we
| make the show and keep making 1t I'M
| til there is nothing to show.
In the meantime we have gathered
nothing about us that Is permanent. The
| people who have been our friends in
prosperity, fly from us in our adversely.
They are not friends, only parasites, for
the kind of a man l have described, the
man who has mistaken the false for the
| true III IRE ana iNeu IN MS mistake does
| not easily make friends
Note the low level to which this mis-
taken idea of life leads him. He faln
would have filled his belly with the husss
| that the swine did eat" Think of a
young man of wealth, from home OF
/ culture and of refinement getting so low
| that he enyles the very pigs their food.
/ Yet you have seen 1t. and / have seen it,
and it grows out of this very thing OF
making just plumbers described in tho
| parable.
| Tremendous Warning.
The story at this point is a tremendous
warning. and If 1t stopped here 1t would
| be a warning to us, but not of necessity
a help. 1t does not stop here. The Master
never called attention to a disease with
out pointing out a remedy This child of
God who has had such mistaken notions
of life. and has wandered so far from
home, can come back. Although by his
actions he seems to have forfeited his
rights. yet he Is still the Fathers child,
and knows that food for pigs is not the
food to sustain the life of child of God.
Il will rise and go to my Father"
This Is the one cure for the mistakes
of life. Get back TO the right view point.
All that had gone before was practically
a denial of his soaship. give me mine.
and let me go away and do as | please"
that had been the blunder. Now to re-
trieve this he must see that first of all
he belongs TO his Father
broken and shattered youth possibly,
and one that never realizes its early
promise, but surely the return is much