Boy Lost by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Aug 29, 1865

"Boy Lost."

By Editor

Not long since we saw an advertisement with the above heading, in a daily paper. A description of the missing youngster was given, and a reward offered for his restoration to his parents. We subsequently learned that the boy had been on a spree with some other precocious bloods, and after exhausting the money he purloined from his mother's purse, returned of himself, like the prodigal to his father's home. His parents were rejoiced at his safe return, and flattered themselves that he was found. We differed from them. From what we know of the matter, we think the boy is still lost. In fact, he was lost before his parents missed him. He is now more than a dozen years old, and yet has been allowed by his fond and wealthy parents to roam the streets by day or night, to run to fires, smoke cigars till they no longer make him sick, loaf around grocery stores, and come in and out when he pleased. That boy has been "long lost," and so have thousands of others in our large cities, albeit they attend their meals regularly, and do their sleeping at home. Their bodies may be found any day until they go off on a spree, but where are the boys? Where is the innocence, and ductile spirit of boyhood and youth? Lost! All the advertising in the world will not bring these back. Only correct parental control will drag them from the dark and slimy labyrinths in which they are now wandering, and place them on the sunny road of virtue which leads through pleasant lands. Boys are to be the men of the land, and we need to have them good men, but we shall have no lack of rowdies and thieves, so long as boys of twelve summers are allowed to be roaming the streets after dark.