MODERN YOUTH DECRIED

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 58, 2 December 1926, Page 12

MODERN YOUTH DECRIED

NOT AS GOOD AS SIXTY YEARS AGO

Dominion Special.

Auckland, December 1. Comparisons between the aatloUS character of young people of 60 sears ago and those of to-day were made by speakers at an old parishioner reunion held in connection with the diamond jubilee of All baints Church, the comparisons being generally ■ tinctly unfavourable to modern voutn. An eloquent plea for stricter observance of the Sabbath was made by Mrs W Calder, widow of the late vicar of 'the parish. The children of today had not the self-controlled and disciplined state of mind to get up in time for Communion at 8 a.m., but instead they dawdled away the ing and arrived at 11 a.m. Mrs. t-alder said she still remembered the shocked expression of a girl long ago who confessed that she had washed her hair instead of going to church. Modern girls had no hair t<? wash, but instead they washed silk stockings and then thev went for a picnic somewhere. God was not given a thought. Going to church was not salvation itself, but the disciplining would stand in good stead to those who practised it If going to church was repugnant because it meant missing a certain amount of pleasure, this revealed a dreadful state of affairs. There was not the slightest reason why children should not be taught to go to church and to think of it pleasantly. The old-fashioned, dreary and melancholy form of religion was no longer wanted. ... Mr. J. Stichbury compared the attitude of a voung man of 60 years ago with that of the young man of today from a somewhat different point of'view. The young man of to-day. he said, wanted to have a piano and a costly bedroom suite when be got married, but the speaker himself when he was married had no money left for furnishing after paying for the house. He had. therefore, made two chairs out of flour casks, a couch out of a saddle case, a table from a packing case, and a chest of drawers from two large biscuit cases. He was puzzled for a time when a cradle came to be needed, but at length he carried home a gin case rnd made a cradle from it. This was his total furniture for some years.