JT 378 
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BT 378 
 • P8 V5 
 Copy 1 
 
 THE 
 
 TWO PRODIGILS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 m&m* 
 
THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 B V* 
 
 Rev. MARVIN K^ VINCENT, D.D., 
 
 PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANT. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 NEW YORK: ^ 
 
 Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 
 
 770 BROADWAY, COR. Oth ST. 
 
*■$. 
 
 Copyright, 1876, by 
 Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 
 
 ROBERT RUTTER, EDWARD 0. JENKINS, 
 
 BINDER, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPES, 
 
 84 BEEKMAN STREET, N. Y. 20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., M. V. 
 
THE YOUNGER SON 
 
THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 THE YOUNGER SON. 
 
 And he raid, A certain man had two sons : 
 
 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion 
 Of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 
 
 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and 
 took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with 
 riptous living. 
 
 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; 
 . and he began to be in want. 
 
 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he 
 sent him into his fields to feed swine. 
 
 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine 
 did eat ; and no man gave unto him. 
 
 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my 
 father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! 
 
 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have 
 sinned against heaven, and before thee, 
 
 And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy 
 hired servants. 
 
 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way 
 off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, 
 and kissed him. 
 
 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and 
 in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 
 
 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it 
 on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet : 
 
 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat, and be 
 merry : 
 
 For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found. 
 And they began to be merry. Luke xv. 11-24. 
 
 Human life must have a wonderful and 
 solemn interest for the tenants of the heavenly 
 
6 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 world, if Christ is to be believed. His words 
 in this chapter, which lift the vail for a mo- 
 ment, give us a glimpse of wondrous festivity. 
 Heaven is in a tumult of joy. Angels are ex- 
 changing words of congratulation. Surely it 
 must be some grand, triumphant crisis in 
 God's universe which thus agitates the home 
 of the blessed. It is not this. Follow the di- 
 rection of the angelic glances, and see them 
 resting upon a single son of earth — a man with 
 the lines of sinful passion on his face, standing 
 amid the wrecks of honor, fair promise, native 
 power, yet with his face uplifted to God, say- 
 ing, "I have sinned; forgive me." It is this, 
 nothing but this, that makes heaven ring with 
 praise and pulsate with joy. " There is joy in 
 the presence of the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth." 
 
 AN UNFILIAL SPIRIT THE STARTING- POINT 
 OF THE STORY. 
 
 Both parts of this parable turn on the filial 
 relation between God and man. The fact to 
 which God attaches the most importance is 
 
 i 
 
THE YOUNGER SON j 
 
 that man shall be truly His son. All man's 
 moral welfare is bound up in this fact. All 
 his moral mistakes and failures grow out of 
 his forgetting it, and his moral ruin, if he be 
 ruined, results from his rejecting it. It is be- 
 cause of this that Heaven so rejoices over a 
 recreant who returns to filial duty. And such 
 joy suggests a very fearful contrast. A rescue 
 in which Heaven takes such intense interest, 
 must be a rescue from no ordinary evil and 
 danger. God's own joy over a restored son, 
 gives an awful hint of what it is to be astray 
 from God. 
 
 We are not, however, left to this hint to 
 form an estimate of the evils of such an 
 estrangement. In both the preceding para- 
 bles — the lost sheep and the lost coin — the 
 fact of- absence from God is illustrated, but 
 not the character and extent of the loss which 
 absence entails. That is brought out in the 
 present parable. The secrets of the far coun- 
 try are laid bare. We see how it fares with 
 the son who forsakes his father. 
 
 Here, then, is the true starting-point in this 
 
8 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 sad story of a youth turning his back on home 
 
 and on fatherly love : an unfilial spirit — the 
 
 spirit which separates man from his God. 
 
 This spirit displayed itself in the younger 
 
 Displayed in SOn IN HIS FALSE CONCEPTION OF 
 
 Option of n " LIBERTY. If he had but known it, 
 liberty. k e was mos {- truly free while living 
 
 in obedience to his father; but liberty, with 
 him, meant license, absence of restraint, and 
 therefore disobedience. So men are constant- 
 ly objecting to God's service that it restrains 
 their liberty, not reflecting that license is 
 bondage. The perfect harmony and free 
 movement of the physical universe are se- 
 cured, not only by the impulse which throws 
 the various worlds off from the centre, but 
 also by the attraction which holds them to the 
 centre, and keeps each in its appointed orbit. 
 Suspend law in human society, and let every 
 man do that which is right in his own eyes, 
 and the most awful scenes of tyranny which 
 history depicts would be reproduced with 
 tenfold horrors. So that God is applying no 
 unfamiliar or arbitrary principle in subjecting 
 
THE YOUNGER SON. g 
 
 man to law. His truth, indeed, makes free, 
 but even the liberty which it confers obeys a 
 law, for the man is blessed in his deed who con- 
 tinued! in "the perfect law of liberty." And 
 in the family circle this truth is most clearly 
 apparent ; for who is more truly free, who has 
 larger privileges, than a son who is lord of his 
 father's heart and in sympathy with his fa- 
 ther's aims ? 
 
 The unfilial spirit was further apparent in 
 If IS FALSE CONCEPTION OF HAPPINESS. In a fp]se 
 
 No place should have been as pleas- £f nc happ£ 
 ant to him as home; no society so ness ' 
 grateful as that of a wise and loving parent. 
 On the contrary, happiness lies for him in a 
 far country, and in the society of harlots and 
 rioters. 
 
 The same spirit revealed itself in HIS con- 
 ceit. Little doubt had he when he i nh i s con- 
 asked for his portion of goods, that ceit ' 
 more good was to be gotten out of it by hav- 
 ing it in his own hands than by leaving it in 
 his father's. He would be his own adminis- 
 trator, using his possessions for his own ends, 
 
IO THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 without advice or dictation from any one. It is 
 not an uncommon conceit among men. Theo- 
 retically, few of them, perhaps, would be will- 
 ing to admit that they would not be the better 
 for Divine guidance; but, practically, how 
 many men do we see whose powers are held 
 subject to God's dictation ? How many who 
 do not say, by their daily pursuits, by the use 
 of their wealth, by the direction of their tal- 
 ents, that they deem themselves competent to 
 their own guidance ; that they hold their 
 powers as their own; that they expect their 
 possessions to turn them larger interest of 
 happiness and prosperity in their own hands 
 than in God's? Under the impulse of such a 
 spirit, then, the young man turned his back 
 upon father and home. It might seem as 
 though the memories of the love which had 
 followed him from his infancy, the many sug- 
 gestions of fatherly care which met him at 
 every step, would have touched him, and at 
 least have delayed his departure; but he was 
 in wild haste to be gone. He went, not many 
 days after. He was afraid of any influence 
 
THE YOUNGER SON. H 
 
 which might detain him; impatient of any 
 remonstrance with his folly. He was blinded 
 by that monstrous cheat, that there was some- 
 thing better in the far-off land than father and 
 home could give him ; that monstrous cheat 
 which so many men have to thank for being 
 in moral beggary to-day. 
 
 Hovv forcibly is that delusion illustrated in 
 that familiar picture — the second in the series 
 of " The Voyage of Life." 
 
 You remember the eager attitude of the 
 youth, as he grasps the helm of the gay boat in 
 which he is the only passenger. His eye is bent 
 upon that gorgeous mirage of a palace in the 
 distant clouds. How lovely is the shore he is 
 quitting. How beautiful and peaceful the 
 pastures and the trees. How winning the as- 
 pect of the guardian spirit who stands, with a 
 gesture of warning, close beside the parting 
 boat. Alas ! the boy's back is toward the peace- 
 ful pastures and his better angel, alike. He has 
 no thought but for that castle in the clouds. 
 Something better than God, better than son- 
 ship, better than obedience, better than father- 
 
12 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 ly wisdom and love — that is the delusion which 
 starts so many prodigals upon their career of 
 sorrow. Could he not have been detained at 
 home forcibly? No. Had that been attempt- 
 ed, the story would be cited to-day in support 
 of the claim for larger liberty under God's ad- 
 No force ministration. A master might force 
 k^ e p°hfm L°t a slave to remain in his house. He 
 home. might hold him to duty by bonds or 
 
 stripes; but a father cannot deal thus with a 
 son. Better not to have him in his household 
 at all, than to have him there as anything but 
 a son. If he would go away, he must. And 
 this is the way in which God often deals with 
 obstinate men. A great deal of God's teach- 
 ing is by experience. There are some things 
 which men cannot learn so well in any other 
 way. There are certain delusions so firmly 
 built up — such perfect semblances of strength 
 and security — that men will be convinced that 
 they are delusions only by having them tum- 
 ble on their heads and wound them in the ruin. 
 So perhaps the prodigal can find out the charm 
 and the hospitality of the far country only by 
 
THE YOUNGER SON !<3 
 
 going thither. Travelers without number may 
 come back with bitter' tidings ; they do not 
 break the charm. Therefore God sometimes 
 lets a man take the rein. He leaves him in 
 great measure to himself; to make his own 
 choices., to follow out his own devices, to be 
 blown and tossed like a leaf by the blasts of 
 passion, to have his fill of self: and if self 
 prove a tyrant instead of an obedient servant, 
 if the rough road of self-will so bruise his 
 feet as to awaken longings for even the old re- 
 straints of home, well. At any rate, God will 
 force no man to serve Him. Remember this, 
 ye who cry out against infringement of your 
 liberty. God leaves you free. You can go 
 away from Him if you will; you can stay 
 away from Him if you will ; you can be an 
 outcast. if you will. He will warn, entreat, 
 remonstrate ; but you can be a son in His 
 house only of your own free will. 
 
 POOR ECONOMY. 
 He went into a far country, and there lived 
 nnsavingly. That is the literal mean- Life without 
 
 guidance or 
 
 mg of the words, "wasted his sub- restraint. 
 
H 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 stance in riotous living.' , He lived unsaving- 
 ly — without economy. We lose something by 
 limiting the meaning of that word u economy." 
 We confine its meaning to saving or hoarding 
 up ; whereas an economy is a rule of living ; 
 the whole range of principles by which a man 
 regulates his life; and, if he lives by no rule, 
 of course he lives unsavingly, not only as re- 
 spects money, but power, and time, and every- 
 thing. An economy was just what this prodigal 
 did not want. Every true economy involves 
 direction and restraint. Restraint he was im- 
 patient of, and cast off. Direction he took into 
 his own hands. He began not only without a 
 rule of life, but by hating rule and running away 
 from it. Regarded merely as a pleasure-seeker, 
 he was a fool. He did not get out of his property 
 half the amount of mere sensual gratification 
 which he would have done by observing an 
 economy in his pleasures. There have been 
 debauchees who have made themselves his- 
 torical by their prudence in the midst of their 
 pleasures. There have been men Who have 
 known how to economize appetite so as to 
 
THE YOUNGER SON 
 
 15 
 
 heighten and prolong its gratification. If they 
 had not a true economy of life, they had a kind 
 of economy ; but cur prodigal spurned even 
 this. He was lawless even in his pleasures, 
 and ran to waste, of course. 
 
 We may imagine how friends gathered 
 round him, and flattered his vanity, and 
 praised while they enjoyed his open-handed 
 generosity. Nor need we imagine him sunk 
 in gross dissipation. There is a good deal of 
 truth in that picture by a modern French artist, 
 which represents the youth as the centre of a 
 circle of cultured dissipation. When Cult d 
 a man brings knowledge and culture fq^n^a 11 
 to bear in the interest of sensuality, ™£ ^ u- 
 when he adds literary and aesthetic to allty - 
 bodily sensuality, he runs to waste all the faster. 
 And he who takes the conduct of his life out 
 of God's hands has always enough to help him 
 waste it. He does not remain in his own hands 
 when he gets out of God's. There is no lack 
 of influences adapted to get the partial or 
 entire control of such natures. There are al- 
 ways men enough to attach themselves to one 
 
1 6 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 of these spendthrift souls which are lavish, not 
 only with money, but with affection and trust, 
 and to turn every good-natured impulse into 
 an instrument of ruin. So the prodigal had 
 no trouble in running to waste. Prosperity 
 unearned does not teach economy. One of 
 the rewards of observing God's law that every 
 true success shall be w T orked out or fought 
 out is, that in the working and fighting, the man 
 learns the value of his success and the way to 
 husband it. The prodigal might have learned 
 that lesson as a faithful son, assisting in the 
 management of his father's estate ; but he had 
 gotten his wealth unseasonably, without labor- 
 ing for it, and ; like all such prosperity, it ran 
 away with him. 
 
 It was a short career. To run to waste is 
 the right term. The portion of goods was 
 quickly spent. His friends forsook him then, 
 for sin seeks its own interest only. It is con- 
 cerned with stripping its victim, not with 
 pitying or helping him ; and so there was 
 nothing for this proud young spendthrift but 
 to go to keeping swine, and that at such mis- 
 
THE YOUNGER SON 
 
 17 
 
 erable wages that he sat hungry at his task, 
 and was but too glad to share the meal of the 
 beasts. Is there need to repeat the old, old 
 lesson, that sin ends always and inevitably in 
 degradation? If we will but read the deeper 
 teaching of the parable, the degradation does 
 not begin with the condition of acknowledged 
 servitude. The tasteful dissipation and the 
 swine-keeping are really of a piece. Both the 
 gay rioters and the swine were in the far 
 country; and that which embraces all the 
 variations and the extremes of degradation 
 is the going away from God, the refusing 
 of the allegiance of a son. Really he was as 
 degraded when he insolently claimed his por- 
 tion of goods, as when he sat hungry among 
 the swine. God does not encourage us to 
 make the distinction between great and small 
 sins, however it may exist. He fixes our at- 
 tention on the fact that sin — sin as a 
 
 principle, whatever its developments 
 
 The pleas- 
 ure and the 
 degradation 
 
 —is an ugly and a degrading thing, &SdS£i 
 of one piece throughout. And when t0 § ether - 
 a man decides to forsake God and to take up 
 
1 8 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 with sin, he must make up his mind to take 
 sin as it is, the foul and disreputable part no 
 less than the elegant and respectable part. 
 He takes it all together. He cannot cull out 
 the pleasures of sin and refuse its pains. He 
 cannot choose its high places and decline its 
 swine pastures. If he becomes an inhabitant 
 of the far country, he must accept all the con- 
 ditions of residence. 
 
 WANT. 
 
 He began to be in want. I know no picture 
 in all literature which so terribly illustrates 
 the conscious want of a wasted life, as this of 
 the poor boy sitting among swine, and feeding 
 upon the carob pods. And it is no fancy pic- 
 ture. To all these wasted souls there come 
 hours when their want consumes them, and 
 when they confess it to themselves. Whether 
 they come with the terrible physical conse- 
 quences of unhallowed pleasure, with the 
 wreck of manly strength, or with the disap- 
 pointment of sinful ambitions, there do come 
 
THE YOUNGER SON. 1 9 
 
 times when they ptow hungry for The cravings 
 
 J ° ° J of a wasted 
 
 the love they have thrown away, for hTe - 
 thejoy of noble work which they have despised, 
 and for the peace of innocence. Oh ! how 
 that soul-hunger finds its way into the words 
 of some of earth's most richly-endowed sons, 
 breaking up like a bitter fountain through all 
 their pride of intellect and through all their 
 defiance of God. Hear poor Shelley, as he 
 wanders on the beach at Naples : 
 
 " Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
 Nor peace within, nor calm around, 
 Nor that content surpassing wealth 
 The sage in meditation found, 
 And walked with inward glory crowned, — - 
 Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
 x x # * -* # 
 
 Yet now despair itself is mild, 
 
 Even as the winds and waters are ; 
 
 I could lie down like a tired child, 
 
 And weep away the life of care 
 
 Which I have borne, and yet must bear, 
 
 Till death, like sleep, might steal on me, 
 
 And I might feel in the warm air 
 
 My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
 
 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony." 
 
20 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 This, from the greatest master of English 
 verse. He began to be in want. 
 
 HE COMES TO HIMSELF. 
 And from this point in the history of such a 
 soul, there is usually either a quick, desperate 
 plunge into complete ruin, or a struggle to 
 recover the lost ground. The latter was the 
 case with our prodigal. Home and fatherly 
 love had not quite lost their power ; and as he 
 sat there in his utter wretchedness, the mem- 
 ory of the old days of peace and plenty came 
 back upon him with power. "He came to 
 himself y It is at once a delicate and a power- 
 ful stroke of the Divine narrator to represent 
 The delirium this prodigal career as a kind of mad- 
 ness : a delirious dream, from which 
 one wakes to find himself bruised and maimed 
 by his frenzied freaks. He came to himself. It 
 was not only that he saw himself ragged and 
 filthy, not only that he w^as consumed with 
 hunger; but these stern agents had dispelled 
 the delusion which had blinded him, and had 
 shown him his wretchedness as the legitimate 
 
THE YOUXGER SOX. 21 
 
 result of his leaving his father's house. He 
 was a beggar and an outcast ; but before all, 
 and as the cause of all, he was a sinner. He 
 would go home then, not as a hungry man 
 asking for bread, but as a sinful son asking 
 forgiveness. "I will say, not ' Father. I am 
 hungry,' but ' Father, I have sinned against 
 Heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy 
 to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy 
 hired servants/ ' The slavish spirit was not 
 gone yet. He would understand better, by 
 and by, the folly of the thought that he could 
 ever be anything but a son in his father's house, 
 or ever enjoy favor on any other ground than 
 that of his father's free love and mercy. 
 
 AND GOES STRAIGHT HOME. 
 
 He arose and went to his father. He did 
 not go to any other citizen of the far country 
 to seek a new and better service. He aban- 
 doned the far country and all its service 
 entirely. He would not get bread or pardon 
 by a change of service, any more than a sinful 
 man will find relief from his remorse and hun- 
 
22 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 ger of heart, as many seek to do, by trying a 
 new course of sin. Pardon and peace cannot 
 be had in absence from God. They are wholly 
 dependent upon sonship. Not only this or 
 that fault must be abandoned; the whole 
 economy of sin must be forsaken, and the man 
 must go to his father. And here, too, we have 
 illustrated the nature of a true sorrow for sin. 
 The apostle, you remember, makes a distinc- 
 sorrow and tioii between sorrow and repentance, 
 Repentance. s ; nce ^q speaks of repentance as grow- 
 ing out of sorrow. " A godly sorrow which 
 worketh repentance. ,, The prodigal might 
 have been sincerely sorry for his degradation, 
 his rags, his hunger, and yet never have left 
 the far country ; but when he arose and went 
 to his father, that showed the real character 
 of his sorrow. That was repentance. Mere 
 sorrow, which weeps and sits still, is not re- 
 pentance. Repentance is sorrow converted 
 into action ; into a movement toward a new, 
 better life. 
 
THE YOUXGER SOX. 
 
 23 
 
 IS THE WANDERER FORGOTTEN AT HOME? 
 
 And what, meanwhile, of the father? Has 
 he given up and forgotten his straying child? 
 
 Oh ! father, you who, years ago, saw the door 
 close upon that erring, headstrong son, tell 
 me how well Christ interprets your own heart. 
 Have you forgotten the wanderer ? Are there 
 no scalding drops on your cheek in the dark 
 nights ? Is there no burden of prayer on your 
 heart in the closet and at the household altar ? 
 Has not your ear grown wondrously sensitive 
 to a strange step on the threshold, and do you 
 ever hear one without a quickened pulse ? Is 
 God less a father than you? Has He less 
 interest in His straying ones ? Is Christ going 
 to leave you here with the thought that the 
 old fatherly tenderness lay dormant all through 
 those sad days of riot and woe, only to be 
 awakened by the prodigal's return ? Not such 
 is the teaching of those words. " The Son of 
 man is come to seek and to save that which is 
 lost" " God commendeth His love toward us 
 in that while we were yet sinners Christ died 
 
24 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 for us." Not such is the lesson of the shep- 
 herd going out upon the mountains for the 
 lost sheep, or of the woman sweeping for the 
 lost piece of money. If there is any truth 
 which the Bible pushes forward like a beacon, 
 it is the truth of God's intense yearning over 
 men who are yet in their sins. How was it 
 that the eye of the father was watching so 
 Divine love intently the road along which his child 
 over n ks S chii- had gone ? What power had touched 
 dren * his aged eyes, that, in the figure which 
 
 toiled with bleeding feet over the stones, 
 transformed by sorrow, emaciated with hun- 
 ger, so different in his foul rags from the gay 
 youth who had gone so gallantly away from his 
 door, he recognized the son of his love ? Who 
 but the veriest slave at heart — the elder son, 
 for example — would have dared to challenge 
 the impulse of fatherly love which sent that 
 old man as on winged feet to meet his boy? 
 
 We get through this parable, into the very 
 heart of God. We go down to the very foun- 
 dation of that wondrous economy of grace 
 which runs through the Bible ; the fact, name- 
 
THE YOUXGER SOX. 
 
 25 
 
 h\ that man is God's child. Can you reason 
 upon God's love for him ? Can you find in 
 man, or in his doings, or in his circumstances, 
 that which is adapted to draw out such riches 
 of divine love ? Was there anything" in that 
 prodigal who had trampled upon fatherly love, 
 abused fatherly kindness, squandered fatherly 
 gifts, who came back bankrupt, filthy, ragged, 
 to throw himself upon fatherly compassion— 
 anything to prompt that running to meet him, 
 and that close embrace? Nothing, absolutely 
 nothing in these. Every reason, on the con- 
 trary, why he should have sent him back with 
 reproaches to die in the far country. But 
 under all was still the fact — he is my son : and 
 no father needs any other explanation than 
 this. It was enough that the boy was 
 content /to be a son. He had thought that 
 there was something better than this. The 
 father desired nothing better than this. He 
 knew there was no blessedness so great for 
 the youth as to dwell obediently in his fathers 
 house, and he desired no greater happiness 
 for himself than to pour out upon the son 
 
2 6 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 of his love the riches of his fatherly tender- 
 ness. 
 
 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 So the prodigal was at home again. Folded 
 in his father's arms, the past was as if it had 
 not been. There was a magnetism in that 
 clasp which drove away the last vestige of the 
 servile spirit from the prodigal's heart. He 
 said : " I have sinned ; I am not worthy ;" but 
 he forgot to say, " Make me a servant/' The 
 father had now no thought but that of rejoic- 
 ing. This was not the time to read homiliej 
 on the son's ingratitude. My son is alive fron 
 the dead. My son was lost and is found 
 Awav with all thoughts of the death and of the 
 loss. Enough of those in the far country* 
 Let us think only of the life and of the recovery. 
 My son is at home with a son's heart in him- 
 It is not meet that my son should be in rags. 
 The Robe Bring forth the best robe for him. 
 and die gl ^ ^ s not mee t that my son should be 
 Feast. a dishonored beggar. Am I not 
 
 rich? May I not do what I will with mine 
 
 i 
 
THE YOUNGER SOiV. 
 
 27 
 
 own? Put a ring on his finger. It is not 
 meet that my son should be hungry. He 
 shall feast as he never did in the far country. 
 Bring forth the fatted calf and kill it. Ah! 
 the richest feast that day was the father's after 
 all. Home fare must have been sweet indeed 
 to the hungry son, but no dainty could be so 
 sweet as the sight of the son at the table to 
 the father. It seems as if we could almost 
 see the eager, hungry look of love with which 
 he sat and watched him as he ate. 
 
 If we were forced to surrender all but one 
 portion of the Bible, and could choose our 
 portion, our choice might safely rest on this 
 Darable. "Where in the entire range The Para- 
 
 ' r . , . . ble contains 
 
 01 human literature, sacred or pro- the central 
 
 , . , r , . truth of 
 
 ane, can anything be found so terse, scripture. 
 so luminous, so full of infinite tenderness— so 
 faithful in the picture which it furnishes of the 
 consequences of sin, yet so merciful in the 
 hope which it affords to amendment and 
 penitence — as this little story? How does it 
 summarise the consolations of religion and the 
 sufferings of life ! All sin and punishment, 
 
28 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 all penitence and forgiveness, find their best 
 delineation in these few brief words." * The 
 whole gospel is in them ; and whatever may 
 be the value of the other lessons of the Bible, 
 it is dependent upon this, which is its central 
 lesson. This is what we, with our sinful nat- 
 ures, our experience of sin's hard fare, our 
 craving for an eternal love, need first and 
 most. Let us now gather up a few of the 
 clear, salient, practical teachings of the story. 
 
 PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 
 T. All sin has its root in absence from God. 
 Man's true and normal relation to God is that 
 of a son. As a son, recognizing the obliga- 
 tions, claiming the privileges, discharging the 
 duties, cultivating the affections of sonship, he 
 is safe, happy, useful. To forsake this position 
 is to enter upon the road to ruin, 
 
 II. Absence front God results in zvaste of life, 
 Man must live under some rule. God gives 
 him a law which effects the best economy of 
 power, and the most happy development of 
 
 * Farrar — " Life of Christ." 
 
THE YOUNGER SON. 29 
 
 talent; which brings out the best there is in 
 him, and puts it to the highest uses ; which 
 imposes such restraints as will keep power 
 from wasting and innocence from corruption. 
 If man refuses to believe this, if he thinks he 
 can frame a better economy of life, he must 
 try the experiment, but he will try it at his 
 cost. He will live unsavingly, and wake from 
 the excitement of his experiment, to the bitter 
 consciousness of a want for which earth has 
 no relief. 
 
 III. Sin has a fearful power of delusion. It 
 invests absence from God with a charm. It 
 conceals the swine pasture behind the ban- 
 queting chamber; it drowns the moans of 
 hunger with the sound of the maddening 
 revel. All this until it has gotten its victim 
 in its power, and then it leaves him without 
 pity to the swine, the husks, and the rags. 
 
 IV. Sin honestly repented of is sure to meet 
 with forgiveness* and the sinner with a most 
 gracious reception. There is joy in heaven 
 over one that repenteth. Aye, in heaven, be- 
 cause there the value of sonship is fully known. 
 
30 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 There the power of sin's delusion is fully ap- 
 preciated ; there the awful consequences of 
 sin are seen in their dread extent ; and it may 
 well be a joy, even to angels, when man breaks 
 through such formidable delusions and ob- 
 stacles and makes his way back to God and to 
 sonship. 
 
 Oh! wanderer from your Father's house,, 
 come to yourself and see your danger. You 
 are running a fearful risk. Read in this para- 
 ble how he who begins by taking sin as a ser- 
 vant, will find in it a terrible and cruel master. 
 If you sit dabbling in the stream and toying 
 with the little eddies, ere you know it the 
 rapids will have you in their mighty sweep, 
 and the precipice is just beyond. Rise up in 
 God's strength. Rise up and break the spell 
 which binds you. Rise up at the craving 
 hunger which, will be satisfied with nothing 
 but God. Rise, and turn your steps resolutely 
 tow T ard home. There is nothing but love 
 there for you. There is a Father there who 
 longs for your return, who will heal your 
 backslidings and crown you with the blessings 
 
THE YOUXGER SOX. ? >l 
 
 of sonship ; and there, folded to His breast, 
 seated at His table, your wanderings over, 
 the far country left behind forever, you shall 
 know what the apostle meant when he said, 
 11 Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
 bestowed on us that we should be called the 
 sons of God." 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
 Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh to 
 the house he heard musick and dancing. 
 
 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 
 
 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed 
 the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 
 
 And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came his father out, 
 and intreated him. 
 
 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve 
 thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment : and yet thou 
 never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : 
 
 But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living 
 with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 
 
 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have 
 is thine. 
 
 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad : for this thy 
 brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is found. Luke 
 xv. 25-32. 
 
 There are probably few Bible readers who 
 have not entertained, if they have not uttered, 
 the wish that the story of the prodigal son 
 might have ended with his return to his fa- 
 ther's house, and have left him happily seated at 
 his father's table. Probably few have read this 
 wonderful parable for the first time without 
 feeling that it was marred by the added story 
 of the elder son's behavior. This fact, to- 
 gether with the disputes of commentators, has 
 
 (35) 
 
36 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 led many readers to neglect this latter portion 
 entirely. We ought never to indulge ill this 
 way of reading the Bible. Not only does it 
 tend to weaken our reverence for its author- 
 ity, but we often lose by such a course a most 
 valuable lesson, and one which is necessary to 
 the complete understanding of the ponion 
 which we read so admiringly. Christ never 
 puts an object or a tint into any of His pictures 
 which is not indispensable to the general ef- 
 fect. If we miss the effect, it is because we 
 are at the wrong point of view. Thus this 
 crown and pearl of the parables cannot afford 
 to lose a single feature. We read, in its first 
 part, of human sin and folly, yet we may also 
 need to be reminded that sin is not always 
 clothed in rags, nor found among swine ; and 
 that many a prodigal, quite as depraved as he 
 who wasted his substance in the far country, 
 may be found under the guise of a respectable 
 and dutiful son. We read how Divine com- 
 placency is called out by penitence. It may 
 also do us good to know how it is not called 
 out bv mechanical obedience. 
 
THE 'ELDER SOX. 37 
 
 A SHARP CONTRAST. 
 
 Let us have these two figures plainly before 
 us, as they come successively to the father's 
 door. Here is the ragged, beggarly prodi- 
 gal, foul with the reek of the swine-yards; 
 
 his substance wasted, gaunt and pale through 
 his own wasteful folly. After him comes the 
 elder son, fresh from the field where he has 
 been serving the father ; the eminently re- 
 spectable young man, who has never asked 
 for his portion of goods, who has al- Vagabond- 
 
 -, . T age, and 
 
 ways remained at home. It is a good and 
 
 . regular 
 
 sharp contrast — vagabondage and standing. 
 respectability, a bad name and good and 
 regular standing, seedy profligacy and strict 
 propriety. 
 
 And. the returned beggar has the fatted 
 calf, the robe, the shoes, the ring, the music 
 and dancing. The elder brother might come 
 home from the field a hundred times as he is 
 doing in our picture, and the household would 
 not be stirred like this. And he grumbled at 
 it, and what is more, there were enough to 
 
38 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 justify him. Reproduce that same scene, as 
 you could very easily in a hundred families, 
 and give the elder son a chance to ventilate 
 his grievance, and he would have no difficulty 
 at all in finding sympathizers. He who had 
 served and never transgressed, was it fair that 
 he should never have even a kid to make 
 merry with his friends ? Should all the fes- 
 tivity be lavished on the vagabond? On the 
 face of it, the elder son has rather a plausible 
 case. We want to see whether it is any more 
 than plausible. 
 
 HAS HE A GOOD CASE? 
 
 And, as a preliminary to a satisfactory an- 
 swer, keep prominently before you the fact 
 which is obvious to the most careless reader, 
 that the whole action of the parable is con- 
 fined to the family circle, and that all its moral 
 lessons turn* upon the relation of father and 
 son. Whatever sin is here pictured derives 
 its peculiar quality from the fact of its being a 
 sin against a father. Whatever penitence is 
 displaj'ed is called out by the remembrance 
 
THE ELDER SOX. 
 
 39 
 
 of fatherly love insulted. Whatever forgive- 
 ness is bestowed bears the stamp, not of ju- 
 dicial clemency, but of parental tenderness. 
 And in this characteristic of the parable lies 
 the test by which we are to form our judg- 
 ment of the character and behavior of the 
 elder son, and of the justice of his complaint. 
 The comparison between him and his The com , 
 returning- brother turns upon one utm^on 
 point — the development of a true filial {kVrf?*" 
 spirit. Which of the two exhibited fili;is P iHt - 
 it? And thus only the story in all its parts 
 becomes a true parable of human relations to 
 God. For man's proper and normal relation 
 to God is that of a son, not of a servant ; and 
 this truth is brought out in the first part of 
 the parable very effectively and beautifully, in 
 that the issue of the younger son's history is 
 his restoration to not only the privileges of 
 sonship, but to the spirit of sonship. For you 
 will remember that when he was meditating 
 a return to his home he communed thus with 
 himself: " I will arise and go to my father. 
 I will say, I have sinned. I am not worthy 
 
40 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 any more to be called a son ; make me as one 
 of thy hired servants. I will make myself 
 worthy by service/' And so he arose and 
 went to his father, conning over this lesson by 
 the way, and forgot it in the first clasp of his 
 father's arms. " Father, I have sinned. Fa- 
 ther, I am unworthy." It was meet that he 
 should remember that part. But he never 
 could have said " make me a hired servant " 
 w T ith the tears falling like rain from the aged 
 face, and the clasp of those feeble hands round 
 his neck. The filial spirit came back to him 
 on the instant, and through it he saw as in a 
 flash that fatherly love was not conditioned 
 upon worthiness ; that to his father he never 
 could be a servant ; that such a suggestion 
 would be an outrage upon parental love, and 
 that the parent's deepest wish could be satis- 
 fied only by his frank and full acceptance of 
 the position of a son in a true spirit of son- 
 ship. We have seen, therefore, how the 
 younger son, the returned prodigal, did ac- 
 cept this position in this spirit; and because 
 of this we leave him seated at the table, clad 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
 41 
 
 in the best robe, the centre of household joy 
 and festivity. 
 
 A SUSPICIOUS SON. 
 
 Look now at the elder brother tried by this 
 test. And first you will observe the peculiarly 
 unfilial, suspicious spirit of the man. An 
 older, trusted son, ever with his father, one 
 would thiiik that nothing could go on in the 
 household from which he could think him- 
 self excluded. A true son's instinct would 
 have said, " If there is any special joy in the 
 house I must be concerned in it. It is some- 
 thing for me to rejoice oyer;" and when he 
 heard the sounds of revelry he would have 
 quickened his step, and have made his way to 
 the heart of the festivity to find out its cause 
 and intent. Not so this honored and trusted 
 son. " What, a revel going on in my father's 
 house, and I not present ! I, ignorant of the 
 cause ! Something in progress here which I 
 have had no hand in! What does this fore- 
 bode to my standing and dignity ? What secret 
 grudge of my father against me does this 
 indicate?" "" — "" 
 
42 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 Outside the And so he stands outside, and calls a 
 wk°ha al s k enS servant and confers with him. This 
 ant> is always the attitude of the unfilial 
 
 spirit toward God in Christ Jesus. It seeks 
 its impressions of the Heavenly Kingdom 
 from the outside, from hangers about the 
 door, from critics — any way, rather than by 
 going in and learning from the Father him- 
 self. It is with the household of faith just as 
 it is with any other household. How much 
 value would you attach to the report of a 
 man's family life from one who had watched 
 it only through the windows, or by peep- 
 ing through a half-open door? Why, one 
 who should gather his information in this 
 way, might easily find cause to represent your 
 house as a hell instead of an earthly paradise. 
 Scores of movements and gestures seen with- 
 out hearing the words which explained them 
 to those within, hundreds of words heard out 
 of their proper connection, and without see- 
 ing the looks of love which passed from father 
 to child, or from brother to sister, would con- 
 vey an utterly false impression. The house- 
 
THE ELDER SON. 43 
 
 hold of faith can be understood only from the 
 inside. No one ever knows as a father the 
 man to whom he is only a servant, or a looker- 
 on. " Xo man knoweth the father but the 
 son, and he to whom the son shall reveal 
 him " by making him a son. You may see 
 this in this very story. The servant who 
 came out to talk with this elder son had not S 
 at all penetrated to the secret of the father's * 
 joy. All he knew was that a long-absent son 
 had come back alive, and that the father was 
 glad that he was not dead, and had ordered 
 him to kill a fat calf. Of the moral elements 
 of the case, those which gave all the intensity 
 to the rejoicing, of the father's agony over 
 moral wreck, of the father's joy over restored 
 filial love and loyalty, the menial knew as 
 little as he who was questioning him. 
 
 AN INSOLENT SON. 
 
 But little as that was, it was quite enough 
 to anger the questioner ; and even the father 
 does not escape his anger. The father, you 
 notice, is true to his character throughout. 
 
44 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 He is alike the father to both sons; as tender 
 
 and considerate in the one case as in the other. 
 
 He comes out to meet the angry son just as 
 
 he ran to meet the prodigal. He does not 
 
 send a servant, but appeals in person, just as, 
 
 oh, wonder of wonders, the Father in heaven 
 
 does to His recreant, rebellious, complaining 
 
 sons, seeking to win them back to filial love, 
 
 and saying to the rebel whom He would be 
 
 justified in crushing, " Come, and let us reason 
 
 He com- together." And now hear the com- 
 plains of a 1 . T . . . r r t i 
 
 good father, plaint. Listen to this pattern of filial 
 docility and affection. " Lo, these years do I 
 serve thee. I never transgressed thy com- 
 mand, and yet I never had from thee even a 
 kid to make merry with my friends; but as 
 soon as this thy son is come, who has devoured 
 thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for 
 him the fatted calf/' There are no more fear- 
 ful sarcasms in the Bible than the words in 
 which men unconsciously portray their own 
 characters. Few better subjects for contempt 
 are afforded than the picture which this elder 
 son paints of himself in these few sentences. 
 
THE ELDER SO.V. 
 
 45 
 
 Look, for instance, at the outrageous lack cf 
 all modesty in the man. Had his father had 
 no right to his service and fidelity while the 
 son had been living in his house and eating 
 his bread? Was his service something to be 
 paraded as a meritorious and voluntary con- 
 cession which he had been at perfect liberty 
 to withhold? Is it indeed a thing for my 
 children or yours to boast of, that they have 
 been dutiful and affectionate sons and daugh- 
 ters? Could they be any less, and be worthy 
 of the name at all? 
 
 A SLAVISH SON. 
 
 Is it a son, then, who utters these words? 
 No, indeed ! The words themselves prove 
 him to be no son in the true sense of that 
 term. "All these years do I serve thee, and I 
 have not received so much as a kid for my 
 service." All these years he had been living 
 on the terms of a servant. This is the way in 
 which that slavish soul sums up all those 
 years of fatherly trust, and fatherly care, and 
 
46 THE TWO PRODIGALS, 
 
 pleasant domestic intercourse, and confiden- 
 tial sharing in the father's plans and labors. 
 He has had "All these years have I served, and 
 
 no kid for . 
 
 wages. have not had a kid for it. The 
 
 younger son, the prodigal, could not find it in 
 his heart to utter the words, " Make me as 
 one of thy hired servants." The elder son 
 coarsely asserts that he is a servant, and com- 
 plains that he has been cheated of his wages. 
 He sneers at the brother who asked for his 
 ^ portion of goods. He is doing the very same 
 thing. The younger wanted his portion, that 
 he might go and use and enjoy it away from 
 his father. The elder reveals the self-same- 
 spirit. All things were his freely to enjoy in 
 his father's house, and with his father; but he 
 grumbles because he could not make merry 
 with his own friends ; because he has not had 
 V something to himself. And it was a hypo- 
 crite's grumbling after all. No danger of 
 that mean, slavish spirit ever erring in ex- 
 travagant hospitality. His friends would have 
 waited long for an invitation to a feast of his 
 making. Never a kid had been given. Had 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
 47 
 
 he ever asked it? Would such a father have 
 been likely to refuse the best of the herd to 
 an honored, beloved son ? No one will draw a 
 wrong inference from these words who shall 
 keep in mind the key-thought of the parable, 
 the filial spirit as God's test of character. 
 Service was due the father. The son could 
 not love him and not serve him. The re- y 
 turned prodigal was not to be made a servant, 
 but he would serve none the less. Service is 
 bound up with filial love. " If a man love me, 
 he will keep my words." The point is, that no 
 service is valuable in God's eyes which does 
 not grow out of filial love. The gospel rec- 
 ognizes no service for wages except the serv- V 
 ice of sin, whose wages is death. It calls for 
 the love which freely lays all powers and 
 faculties and resources at the Father's feet, 
 and says : " My meat is to do the will of Him 
 that sent me, and to finish His work." What 
 a son receives from a father is not of the 
 nature of wages, but of free gift; not of re- 
 ward, but of grace ; and he who acts upon 
 any other principle insists upon changing 
 
\ 
 
 48 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 the household of God into a barrack of 
 slaves. 
 
 AN UNTRUTHFUL SON. 
 
 But had he received nothing? Not a kid 
 for his friends; but was this the utmost he 
 had to ask? Was there no other gift to be 
 named with this little sensual gratification ? 
 Study the father's answer, and see that you 
 put the emphasis in the right place. It is not, 
 " Son, thou art ever with me, while thy 
 brother has gone away from me," but " Son, 
 thou art ever with me." Is it for thee to talk of 
 having had nothing, when thou hast had me?\\ 
 He had had these years, and with me all things 
 
 «// things in , • -) CM 11 
 
 his Father, that are mine? Shall a man com- 
 plain of lack of money in his purse when the 
 door of the exchequer is open to him ? Shall 
 he mourn over a dry cistern when the reser- 
 voir is close by his door? Is it for man to 
 talk of receiving reward and wages from 
 God, when, the very moment he becomes a 
 son of God, he is greeted with, "All things 
 are yours — ask and ye shall receive ? " Shall 
 
THE ELDER SOX. 49 
 
 a son murmur about gilts, when the giver of 
 every perfect gift says to him: " Thou art 
 ever with me, and all that I have is thine — my 
 presence, my wisdom, my sympathy, my 
 strength, my counsel. I am thine, thy father ; 
 and if thou dost abide in me and my words in 
 thee, thou shalt ask what thou wilt, and it 
 shall be done." What vestige of the spirit of 
 a son can be in him who, with such a father, 
 insults him, and complains of the want of a 
 kid? 
 
 AN UNFAITHFUL SON, 
 
 But what of this claim of faithful service? 
 Will it stand? "These years I serve thee, 
 and never have I transgressed. " It is much 
 to say, even for a loving son. Remember, 
 once more, we are trying him by a filial, not 
 by a judicial, test. The question is already 
 answered. He had violated the very He had 
 
 r , . . r , 1 failed in ser- 
 
 nrst condition 01 a sons service by vice. 
 putting himself on the footing of a servant. 
 Whatever he might be able to say as a serv- 
 ant, he could not say as a son, " These years 
 
5o 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 have I served thee without transgressing." 
 v i The very marrow and essence of service was 
 wanting. The vilest of trangressions against 
 fatherly affection and confidence lay at his 
 door. He had never transgressed ! Yet 
 what was this stab at his father's heart ; this 
 coarse imputation upon his father's affection 
 and justice ; this vile abuse of him over whom 
 his father was rejoicing? Take the matter 
 home. Do you know of anything that would 
 grieve you more than to have one of your 
 children hate another? To your own fatherly 
 instinct such hatred is unnatural and horrible ; 
 and your instinct in this is only a reflection 
 of God's feeling, embodied in His gospel, 
 which refuses to separate the fraternal spirit 
 from the filial, and insists that he who loves 
 God shall love his brother also. See the 
 mean, pampered wretch as he stands at the 
 father's door, and learns from a menial that 
 his brother has returned. The very word 
 "brother" maddens him. He will not accept 
 the word. " This thy son is come who hath 
 devoured thy living." What bitterness and 
 
THE ELDER SON. 5 I 
 
 venom in the words. " He may be A bad bro . 
 thy son, since thou art weak enough ther * 
 to receive and feast him, but he is no brother 
 to me, who have served thee all these years, 
 and never transgressed thy commandment. 
 This thy son ! A fine son, forsooth ; a worthy 
 bearer of thy name." The poor, narrow soul, 
 after all his experience of fatherly regard, 
 could not understand how sonship could rest 
 on any other basis than service, service for 
 wages ; and the son who had failed of service 
 had surely no rightful place at the table, and 
 no claim to the robe and ring. Alas, alas! it 
 is a picture of the world's justice ; it uncovers 
 the serpent at the root of all mere legal 
 righteousness. " This world will not believe a 
 man repents," and if it did, what then ? 
 What is penitence ? What are abandoned 
 sins ? What are changed affections, so long 
 as a debt remains unpaid, a service unren- 
 dered ? David's instinct was truthful which 
 prompted the words : " Let me fall now into 
 the hands of the Lord, for very great are His 
 mercies, but let me not fall into the hands of 
 
52 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 men/' Thanks be to God that human peni- 
 tence has a Father to go to. Thanks be to 
 God that a sinner is tried by a Father's heart ; 
 for it would go hard indeed with him, were he 
 forced to make good his wasted portion, or to 
 x pay his way through servitude back to son- 
 ship. 
 
 A FAITHFUL FATHER. 
 
 Yet observe how, through all, the father 
 remains constant to his fatherhood. Through 
 all his kindness and consideration for the 
 elder, angry brother, there is no surrender of 
 this. The Father says : " We ought to rejoice. 
 The brother has come home." He will not 
 concede the right of the elder to refuse the 
 tie of brotherhood. " He was lost, he was 
 dead, but he has returned, and he is still thy 
 brother. We ought to rejoice. He has come 
 in rags, I know ; from vile haunts and com- 
 panions, I know. He has spent his substance, 
 I know. He has been a keeper of swine, I 
 know. But he has come home: come home 
 with penitence and confession, and it is meet 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
 53 
 
 that we make merry. I have him safe and 
 sound, not only in body, but in the higher, 
 clearer, better sense : safe in sin forgiven, in 
 sonship sought and found ; my son, more 
 truly now that he is at my table in borrowed 
 robes and without a penny, than when he 
 went from my door in the pride and gaiety 
 of his new riches." 
 
 WHY THIS STORY WAS ADDED. 
 
 And now can we not see why this unpleasant 
 story was added to the one which has become 
 so familiar and so dear to us all ? Was it not as 
 necessary as the first part to show us in what 
 alienation from God consists, and on what 
 restoration to His favor depends? Perhaps 
 if we had had only the first part, we should 
 have gotten an imperfect, one-sided concep- 
 tion of what it is to be a prodigal. Sin against 
 our father, as revealed in flying to a far country 
 and wasting the substance in riot, it is eas) r 
 enough to understand ; but there is another 
 phase of it, outwardly more respectable, more 
 subtle, more dangerous, because wearing the 
 
54 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 livery of fidelity and virtue, against which we 
 need a special caution. Christ shows us here 
 Christ's test that His test of character goes deeper 
 dee C p h er r tha e n t ' ian ours I that His estimate is based 
 man's. upon the presence or absence of a 
 
 true filial-spirit. And in the graphic picture 
 which He here draws for us, we see that while 
 penitent, filial love may come to its father's 
 house in rags and filth, the real prodigal may 
 wear the guise of a faithful son. Outward 
 conformity to the rule may cover the spirit 
 \of a slave; and prodigality in tears, asking for 
 nothing but fatherly forgiveness and love, is 
 infinitely dearer to God than the querulous, 
 conceited righteousness which says, u These 
 many years do I serve thee, neither trans- 
 gressed I at any time thy commandment.' 
 
 TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 How marvelously the characters shift in 
 this narrative as we get hold of its key. The 
 father knows whom to place at the table and 
 to clothe with the best robe. We find a 
 prodigal son at the end of the story as at the 
 
THE ELDER SG.V. 
 
 55 
 
 beginning; but it is not the same son. The 
 true son is the returned swineherd. The real 
 The prodigal is the respectable elder swineherd - 
 brother. There at his father's door, stealthily 
 communing with a servant, in his cold unduti- 
 fulness, his bloodless brutality, his sneering 
 selfishness — he is far fitter for the swineherd's 
 place than he at whom he sneers. How is he 
 better? Did the younger ask for his portion 
 of goods? The elder grumbles because he 
 has not had a kid. Did the younger go into a 
 far country? Leagues could not put such a 
 space between the elder and his father as the 
 ingratitude and envy of a trusted and beloved 
 child. Had the younger been in want? His 
 sorest need was riches compared with the 
 elder son's unconscious beggary of all that 
 goes to the making of a true and noble life. 
 Had the younger wasted his substance? Riot 
 with spendthrifts was economy to the unfeel- 
 ing and uncalculating folly which could 
 trample under foot parental confidence and 
 jeer at parental tenderness. Had the younger 
 been a servant to strangers? The elder had 
 
56 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 confessed himself such in his own father's 
 house. 
 
 THE PARABLE REALIZED. 
 
 How this story was repeated over and 
 over again in the actual experience of Christ 
 when on earth, and is daily repeated in the 
 society of the present day. This spectacle of 
 beggared outcasts at the table became a 
 familiar one in the three years of His earthly 
 ministry. " Your Master eateth with publicans 
 and sinners/' grew into one of the staple 
 charges against the Son of man. The Phari- 
 sees, self-secure in their legal righteousness, 
 knew not what it meant; but Zaccheus knew, 
 when those Divine lips said, " This da)' is sal- 
 vation come to this house." She whom the 
 cruel hierarchs would fain have stoned, knew, 
 when she groveled in bitter remorse at His 
 feet, and heard Him say, " Neither do 1 con- 
 demn thee, go and sin no more;" and that 
 other, her sister in sin, learned the same 
 blessed lesson, as her tears fell fast upon His 
 feet, and the keen rebuke to the arrogant 
 
THE ELDER SON. 
 
 57 
 
 Simon was ended with a word of tender love 
 and abiding comfort to her. And the reproach 
 so often hurled at Him, is to-day the dearest 
 of all truths to a weary, sin-sick world, the 
 only beacon-light which the night of penitent 
 tears and the gathering blackness of remorse 
 can never hide — " This man receiveth sin- 
 ners ! " The tear of one truly repentant sin- 
 ner is dearer to God than the loveless and 
 fruitless formalism of a thousand Pharisees. 
 Penitence can bring the very harlot and 
 publican into closer communion with their 
 Maker, than the combined offerings of a thou- 
 sand vapid and respectable hypocrisies. 
 
 THE LESSON. 
 
 The practical lesson of the story is very 
 plain, very direct, very searching. The para- 
 ble goes out like an inquisitor, asking, " Who 
 is this prodigal among you?" And it may 
 point its finger meaningly at more than one 
 who is complacently congratulating himself 
 on the contrast presented by his respectable 
 standing and his brother's rags and filth. Oh, 
 
58 
 
 THE TWO PRODIGALS. 
 
 dear friend, precious immortal soul, do not 
 shrink from the pointed finger, if it chance to 
 be aimed at you. The answer to that question 
 is vital; the alternative it presents is sonship 
 or slavery; the warmth and joy of home, or 
 the far country; and the test to which God 
 puts you is simple and easily applied. The 
 only footing on which you can be received 
 into His family is that of sonship — sonship 
 reached through penitence for sin, and the 
 consecration of all your love and power to 
 your Father in heaven; by your simple con- 
 sent to give yourself up to His fatherly guid- 
 ance, to receive your gifts from His hand, to 
 hold all your honors at His disposal, and to 
 receive all your possessions through His free 
 grace, and not as rewards of your merit. In 
 any other relation than this, I must say it 
 plainly, your place is with the, elder son. If 
 you are counting on God's favor as reward of 
 merit ; if you are congratulating yourself on 
 the strictness with which you have kept His 
 words ; if you have any feeling that anything 
 in you has established a claim to even so much 
 
THE ELDER SON. 59 
 
 as the smallest kid from your Fathers flock, 
 you are with the elder son at the door, saying, 
 ''These man}' years do I serve thee, neither 
 at any time transgressed I thy command- 
 ment." Outward conformity to God's law 
 gives you no place at His table. You have 
 not shown even outward conformity. The 
 thing which God asks of you, and the only 
 thing, is the spirit of a son, the love of a son, 
 the obedience of a son. And, oh, remember 
 that if this be in you, the Father knows His 
 child under all the disfigurements of sin. You 
 cannot have gone so far away, you cannot 
 have wasted so much substance, you cannot 
 have defiled yourself so fearfully, but that 
 when you shall come back with your heart full 
 of longing for a Father's love and a son's 
 place, the table will be spread for you, and 
 there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner 
 that repenteth, more than over ninety and 
 nine just persons who need no repentance. 
 
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