a ^ ^^ t\ve %\m\» t^Jf 7J THE LOST FOUND, WANDERER WELCOMED. The Lost Found, AND THE WANDERER WELCOMED. BT WILLIAM M. 'Baylor, d.d., MINISTER OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG AND COMPANY, 1873. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, by SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & COMPANY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. CO 2TTEK2 8. PAGH THE LOST SHEEP 3 THE LOST COIN 33 THE PRODIGAL SON. I.— The Depaetube 59 n. — The Resolution 85 m.— The Retuen 115 rV. — The Eldee Beotheb 147 THE LOST SHEEP. «' Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. " And the Pharisees aad scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. " And he spake this parable unto them, saying, •« What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it ? " And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. «'And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them. Rejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep which was lost. "1 say unto you, that likewise joy shaU be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." Luke. xv.. 1-7. THE LOST SHEEP. The personal ministry of Christ had a mar- vellous attractiveness for the degraded outcasts of the Jewish population, and, wherever He went, the Pariahs of the people gathered round Him, in Hstening multitudes. Everywhere " the common people heard Him gladly," and among the crowds that thronged around Him, the hat- ed tax-gatherers, whose extortions made them obnoxious to their fellow-citizens; the openly immoral, whose vices were abhorred by their more respectable neighbors ; and those poor waifs of womanhood, the fallen ones who traf- ficked in their own dishonor, were specially conspicuous. Nor is it difficult to account for this ; for though He loathed the sins. He loved the sinners, and stretched out to them the hand of sympathy and succor. He did not draw 4 THE LOST FOUND. tliem to Himself by making them think less of the guilt which they had incurred, but by awak- ening in them a sense of the loss which they had sustained, and by implanting in them the hope of restoration. • His purity alone might have repelled them, even as it drove the demons shrieking from His presence ; His love alone might have done no more than soothe them by the manifestation of his interest in them ; but the gospel which He proclaimed to them, and which announced that even the vilest mioht be received into the favor of the Lord, won their interest, and drew them to His side. Others had denounced their iniquity, but that only made them tremble, as their fathers did at the base of Sinai. He took them by the hand, and, by His declaration of the possibility of their receiving forgiveness, and of their recovering that image of God which they had lost. He revived the better nature which had been dead within them, and dissipated that despair which had made them re- gardless alike of God and man. This was the magnetism that attracted them ; and as they hung upon His hope-inspiring words, they said, " Never man spake like this man." There was much, too, in His mode of treating THE LOST SHEEP. 5 tliem tliat disposed them to flock around Him. Tiie solemn purists of the land held them at a distance. They passed them by, like the priest and Levite in the parable, " on the other side." They acted as if they would be polluted by tlie most cursory intercourse with them. Tliey seemed to think that all their duty toward them was dis- charged, if they simply held aloof from them. But here was One whose character was imsul-/ lied, and whose life was blameless, who yet did\ not think it beneath Him to put Himself, for I the time, on a level with them, by receiving them \ into His company, and sitting down with them at table ; and such was the effect of His fellow- ship upon them, that they were elevated and en- nobled by its influence, and left His presence more drawn to holiness and heaven than they had ever felt before. Others had driven them downwards, but Jesus had lifted them up. He made them feel their importance as immortal be- ings. He opened up to them the way to hap- piness and to God, and helped them to enter upon it. He taught them to respect themselves by showing them that they were the objects of the Divine compassion, and by telling them that He had come to seek and save them ; and so it 6 THE LOST FOUND, was that, wliile the spmtually and intellectually proud stood haughtily aside from Him, the pub- licans and sinners pressed near to hear His say- ings. But this very success among the despised of the people still further alienated the self-righteous from Him. Already, indeed, they had been re- pelled by His searching discourses, which insist- ed so constantly on inward holiness, as distin- guished from mere outward morality or ritualistic observances ; but when they saw the character of those who were thus clustering round him, they sneeringly said, " This man receiveth sinners^ and eateth with them" Usually, the sting of a taunt lies in its truth ; but, in this instance, what they meant in contemptuous scorn was in reality the highest glory of the Lord, and is to-day the sum and substance of the gospel which we preach, When John the Baptist sent from his prison to assure himself of the genuineness of the Mes- siahship of Jesus, the Lord replied by working many miracles before the eyes of his messengers, and by telling them to go their way and show their master what they had seen ; adding, as the most important evidence of the divinity of His mission, and the greatest miracle of all — '* And to THE LOST SHEEP. 7 tlie poor the gospel is preached." Nor was he mistaken in this ; for grander, more glorious, and, as an evidence of Christianity, more convincing bj far, than any miracle on the bodies of men, was the moral miracle which, by the power of His Spirit, was wrought on the vilest of those who be- lieved in His words, and which we may see daily repeated before our eyes. " This man receiveth sinners." We thank thee, Scribe, for teaching us the words ; let them be caught up and repeated by echoing voices in every city and in every land, until every child of Adam has experienced their truth. Sinners — not righteous men, not rich, not noble, not mighty, not moral, but sinners — no matter how vile and guilty they may have been — here are His words : — " Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Receivetli sinners — not coldly treateth them, not holdeth them aloof, not regardeth them with freezing dignity and stately solemnity, but receiveth them to His heart, and spreadeth for them a table, at which He counts them His most valued guests. It was meant as a sneer ; and yet, all unconsciously, these Scribes and Pharisees, in giving it expres- sion, did preach the gospel more simply and more truly than it has often been proclaimed by sur- 8 THE LOST FOUND. plicecl bishop or by trained minister. "What can vre say more, or better, in telhng the good news than this — " Jesus receiveth sinners ?" Guilty one ! this morning. He will receive thee ; for are not these his words, " Come unto me, and I will give you rest ?' This was not the only occasion on which such a taunt was uttered. Frequently the same thing- was thrown in the Saviour's teeth, and he liad two ways of meeting it. Sometimes he repelled, it; by trying to awaken those who used it to a sense of their own sinfulness. Thus, when, at the call of Matthew, He sat down to the banquet which the publican had prepared, and the Phar- isees said to his disciples, " Why eateth your mas- ter with publicans and sinners ?" He made an- swer, " They that are whole need not a physi- cian, but they that are sick ;" and then sought to reveal their own sickness to them by saying, " Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mer- C}', and not sacrifice." That is to say. He re- minded them of the inner and spiritual nature of all acceptable service, that He might the better convince them of the utter formalism of their re- ligious exercises. Sometimes, again. He justified His conduct by dwelling on the mercy of God to THE LOST SHEEP. 9 sinners, and setting forth the great object of His mission to mankind. This was the course He followed at Jericho, wlien to those who gibed Him for going to the house of Zacchaeus, He said, " The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." As if He had replied, " I have come to seek the lost ; even, therefore, if Zacchaeus should be as bad as you represent him to be, I am only fulfilliDg the real purpose of my ministry when I seek to save him. The man who is most seriously wounded ought to have the surgeon's first attention ; so those whom sin has most defaced should have the Saviour's earliest care." Now, this latter argument is that which Jesus employs in the present instance ; for in the par- ables which follow He illustrates the great re- demption work by a series of pictures, each of which leads up to, and centres in, the happiness of the Godhead in receiving sinners ; and He would have His hearers thence infer, that in work- ing among the despised among men, Ho was truly representing the Divine Father, whose eternal Son he was ; while, in ridiculing His efforts, they were altogether out of sympathy with thoso heavenly intelligences among whom there is joy 10 THE LOST FOUND. over one sinner that repenteth. Behold how out of evil God ever bringeth good ! We owe the parable of the prodigal son to the gibes of of the Pharisees. They say that the sandal-wood gives forth its richest fragrance to the axe that cuts it ; and certainly no diviner words ever is- sued from the Redeemer's lips than these, which came in answer to a sneer. The cross is God's reply to men's insulting iniquity, and the story of the prodigal is Christ's only response to the scorn of His assailants. In seeking to expound these parables, as in this and a few other discourses I mean to do, it is needful to mark, in the outset, not only the one great purpose for which they were all related, but also the different phases of the one subject which they individually present. This will, of course, come out more prominently as we enter more fully on the explanation of each. Mean- while, it may be enough to indicate the points of agreement and diversity between them. They all agree in "representing the lost sinner as the object of God's solicitude, and the repentant sin- ner as the occasion of celestial joy. But they^ differ in the views which they give of the pro- cess of the sinner's restoration' and recovery. THE LOST SHEEP.. 11 The first two parables sliow us the JDivine agen-\ cj in the sinner's recovery ; the last lets us see' the result of that agency in the sinner's own activity. The first two set before us God seek- ing the sinner, together with the Divine joy when the sinner is found ; the last gives special prom- inence to the sinner's own voluntary return to God. The first two have their starting-point in the heart of God, and we see in them the Heavenly Father yearning over his lost child, and taking means to find him and bring him back. The last has its starting-point in the sin- ner himself, and shows us his wandering and his return, as well as his reception. But there is no discrepancy here. Rather the full trath is to be attained by the combination of them all ; and when you see the prodigal coming to himself, and hear him saying, " I will arise and go to my Fa- ther," you are to understand that already the Good Shepherd has been there to seek him, and the Holy Spirit has been striving within him. Such is the grandeur of the work of redemption, that no one parable can adequately portray it ; and therefore here, we have three given to us, that in the union of them all, we might have a more complete understanding of the wondrous theme. 12 THE LOST FOUND. But this is not all. Each parable brings be- fore lis a particular kind of sinful experience. The first, in the wandering sheep, portrays the help- less sinner ; the second, in the lost coin, depicts tlie man who has fallen so low as to have lost the stamp of his Creator, and the consciousness of his degradation j and the third, in the rebellious son, sets before us the sinner who is knowing and deliberate in his iniquity. Corresponding to this difference in the description of the sinner is that which we find in the delineation, of his recovery ; for in the first parable we have the work of the divine Son, the great Good Shepherd ; in the second, that of the Holy Spirit ; and in the third, the Eternal Father's eager desire for the salva- tion of sinners, and His great delight in their de- liverance. In none of the three is there any di- rect reference to that cross whereon Jesus gave Himself a sacrifice for human guilt ; but we may not forget, that He who uttered them was, at the very moment, straitened for the accomplish- ment of that baptism of blood wherewith for us he was baptized, and we must' read them all un- der the shadow of Calvary. But now, leaving these general topics, let us look a M^^^^the teaching of the parable ^w THE LOST SHEEP. 13 of the lost slieep. It was spoken by Jesus on an- other occasion, as we find recorded in the 18th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, at the 12th verse. But there it was designed to illustrate the impor- tance of even one soul in the Heavenly Father's eye. Here it was intended to teach especially these four things : first, God's yearning over the sinner ; second, The helplessness of the sinner to return to God ; iliird, The means used by God for the sinner's recovery ; and fourth, The joy mani- fested by God over the sinner's return. Let us take up these in the order now advanced . I. There is, first, God's yearning over the sinner. Usually, in depicting a lost sinner, we dwell on the miseries which he has brought upon himself. But this and the succeeding parables differ from the ordinary representations of the subject, in that they set before us the loss which God has sustained in the wandering and rebellion of His children. Here it is symbolized by the losing of one out of a hundred sheep ; in the next parable, by the losing of one out of ten coins ; and in the third, by the losing of one out of two sons. Now, I know that it would be perilous to press a mere human analogy too far, when we are speaking 14 THE LOST FOUND. about (Grocl. I admit also that, strictly and abso- lutely, God cannot be said to lose anything, and that He dwelleth evermore in happiness, which nothing can either destroy or becloud. But still the figure of these parables has, somewhere and somehow, a real significance. We cannot, w© must not, eliminate from this losing of the sheep, of the money, of the son, all reference to the ef- fect of the sinner's rebellion upon God. They mean that Jehovah has missed something which He had possessed. They mean that from His point of view the sinner is as something lost is, to its former owner. At first there was a human voice ia the choral harmony of creation's an- them, which rose so sweetly on the ear of God; but when sin made its appearance, that voice dropped out, and He marked its absence with as much regret as Deity can feel. Nay, there was a special reason why God should miss hu- man allegiance, for man alone, of all His crea- tures, so far as we know at least, was created in God's image. In him alone could Jehovah see the perfect, though miniature, representation of Himself ; but when he sinned, that image was defaced, and God lost the complacency which He had in him before. Or, to put it THE LOST SHEEP. 15 ■ more simply, when man fell, God lost the honor and service which ought to have been rendered by him ; the affection with which He ought to have been regarded by him ; and the glory which would have resulted to Him had he an- swered the great design for which he was cre- ated. Nor let it be supposed that, in putting this prominently forward, I am insisting on what is of no importance ; for, in the consciousness of this loss on the part of God, I find the root from which at length grew up the great work of redemption. And, depraved though we ourselves may be, we yet^ possess so much of our prime- val resemblance to God as to be able thorough- ly to understand this. We do not like to lose anything. No matter how trivial or imimportant the object may be, we will search, and search, and search again, rather than give it up as irre- coverable ; and the more we value that which we have lost, the more earnest will be our exer- tions to find it. If it be an animal, or a sum of money, we will go hither and thither ourselves, and engage our neighbors in the quest, if by any means we may be successful ; and if it be a son, all the great depths of our hearts will be stirred within us, as we set out and track him in 16 THE LOST FOUND. his wanderings, nor will we give over our efforts until we come, either on himself, or on his grave. Now, there must be something akin to all this in that God, whose image was at first enstamped upon us. I say not, indeed, that the loss of His human children caused Him positive unhap- piness ; and yet, after all, why need I be so chary ? Do not the Holy Scriptures speak of Him as being grieved ? Do they not represent Him as soliloquizing within Himself thus : " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? How shall I de- liver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? Mine heart is turned within me ; my repentings are kindled together." Let me take courage, then, and say that, mourning over the loss which He had sustained in being deprived of man's af- fection and obedience, He yearned in eager ear- nestness for his recovery. We can only speak of Deity in human words, and these must lose some of their earthly meaning when applied to Him. Nevertheless, it standeth here most sure, that God, when man sinned, lost that which He yery much desired to retain ; and that the weight of this loss impelled Him to seek after human salvation. In the consciousness of loss, there- THE LOST SHEEP. 17 fore, on Jehovah's part, the great work of re- demption began. " He so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." What is that but just another way of saying, He so missed man's affection and fellowship, that He gave His only begotten Son? He sought our salvation, not only for our sakes, but for His own ; and thus the sense of loss out of which sprang the. pur- pose of recovering the sinner corresponds, at the one end of the chain, with the rapturous- joy that is felt at the other, when " the ransomed of the Lord return, and come to Zion." This view of the matter may well give careless sinners food for serious reflection. You are God's. By vir- tue of your very creaturehood you belong to Him. Your hearts, your lives, your service, ought all to be given to Him ; but they are not, and this is no mere thing of indifference to Him. He misses you. He, on whom the universe hangs, and who well might be excused if He 'had no concern for you, misses your love. He hun- gers for your affection. He desires your return to Him. Yea, he has used means of the most costly character to find you out, and to bring you back. "Why will you continue to disregard Him ? Why will you perversely malign Him as one who 18 THE LOST FOUND. takes no interest in your welfare ? Believe, me, you can give Him no liiglier joy than you will cause by your return to Him, wliile your repent- ance will secure unalloyed happiness to your- selves. II. But, in the second place, we have here set before us the simier's own helplessness. He is like a lost sheep. Now, while, as we have seen, this means that God has lost him, we must not for- get that, on the other side of it, the analogy also bears that the sinner has lost himself. There are few more helpless creatures than a wandered sheep. It runs hither and thither, " bleating up the moor in weary dearth," if perchance it may see another of its species, or regain the footsteps of the flock ; while it is ever liable to be assailed by wild beasts, or to fall headlong over some rug- ged precipice, or into some fearful pit. It is within the bounds of possibility, indeed, that it may find its way back to the fold; but this is not probable, and usually it comes back only when it is brought back under the good shep- herd's care. Now, what is all* this but a picture of the sinner? Fretting at its enclosure, and longing for the freedom which he expects outside, THE LOST SHEEP. 19 lie lias left God's fold. He lias gone on and on, fartlier and ever farther away from his Creator ; he has missed the way to happiness ; nor can he find a pathway back to that w4iich he has left. More helpless than the sheep, he cannot by any possibility return miaidedly to God. He is like one groping in the dark, or like the little child that has lost itself in the busy, bustling streets of the crowded city. All he can do is to confess his helplessness, and to lift up his voice and weep. But this, alas ! is usually the very last thing he is willing to do. It is, comparatively speaking, an easy thing to convince the sinner of his guilt, but it is a hard matter to get him to own his help- lessness. He will persist in attempting his own deliverance. He will seek to satisfy God's law for himself, and to find his own way back to hap- piness. The sheep will run to the shepherd when he appears, and welcome him as its helper, look- ing up in dumb gratitude into his face. But the sinner, in this respect more stupid even than the sheep, too often runs from the Shepherd, and will have none of His assistance. Let there be no such pride and waywardness among us, my brethren ; but recognizing in Jesus the Helper whom we need, let us yield ourselves up to Him, 20 THE LOST POUND. ■willing to own our helplessness, if only we may be borne in His loving arms to happiness and heaven. III. We have here, in the third place, tlm means used for the sinner s recovery. " Doth He not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it ? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing?" Many questions rise out of these words which are more easily asked than a-nswered. Thus — Whom do these ninety and nine represent ? Avhat is meant by the leaving of them, and going after that which is lost ? and when may the lost be said to be truly found ? The ninety and nine are described (in the seventh verse) as just persons which need no repentance. Nov7, some have supposed that we have here a reference to the Scribes and Pharisees, to whose sneer we have before alluded. They Avould make it an ironical expression of Christ's hke that other — " They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance ;" and they would interpret the leaving of the ninety and nine, as a kind of implied vindication of THE LOST SHEEP. 21 Himself, bj Jesus, for leaving tlie Scribes and Pharisees, and going after tlie publicans and sin- ners. Tliis gives a good and consistent enough meaning, and there are many reasons why I should be disposed to adopt it ; yet two thoughts weigh with me in inclining me to prefer another. First, It is positively said here, that these ninety- nine need no repentance ; therefore, it is implied that they have never sinned. Second, In the expression, " Joy shall be in heaven over one sin- ner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance," it is evidently suggested that there is some joy over the ninety and nine. But this cannot be true if the ninety and nine represent the Scribes and Pharisees, since it is impossible to conceive that any inhabitant of heaven could rejoice over them. Hence, though even that interpretation is in^^^olved in many difficulties, I prefer to regard the ninety and nine as descriptive of the angels who have kept their first estate, and who cease- lessly serve God before His throne. If, then, this representation be correct, the leaving of the ninety and nine will signify the leaving of heaven by the Eternal Son, when at the era of the incarnation He set out in search of that which was lost ; 22 THE LOST FOUND. and tlie search itself will include everything which Jesus did by His own personal ministry on earth, and by His sacrificial death upon the cross, and everything which He has done and is now doing, by the preaching of His ministers, and by the strivings of His spirit for the recovery of sin- ners. All the way from heaven to Calvary Jesus came to seek lost sinners. He died that the path might be opened up for Him to go farther still in search of them, and for them to be brought righteously back under His loving care. He was going after that which was lost when He sat by the well of Sychar, and conversed with the woman of Samaria ; when he called Matthew in Ins toll- booth, and when he summoned Zacchseus from the branch of the sycamore-tree whereon he was perched. He was going after that which was lost when He shed forth His spirit upon Pentecost, and inspired His servants to proclaim His truth with power ; and He is still going after that which is lost, in the events of His providence, whereby He rouses the careless to reflection ; in the search- ing words of His earnest ministers, who stately declare His love, and speak home to the hearts of their fellow-men ; and in the strivings of His spirit, whereby, often when they can give no ac- THE LOST SHEEP. 23 count of tlie matter, men's minds are strangely turned in the direction of salvation. Yea, He is going after that which is lost this morning, as, once again, through the exposition of this parable, His Love and earnestness, and tenderness, are set before you ; nor will His search be concluded until the day when the angel shall proclaim that " Time shall be no longer." O ! in view of this unceasing work of the Good Shepherd, may we not sing, in the words of the old hymn, — " Wearily for me Thou soughtest ; Ou the cross my soul Thou boughtest ; Lose not all for which Thou wroughtest." But when, it may be asked, is a sinner found by Christ ? The answer is, When, on his side, the sinner finds Christ. The finding by Christ of the lost sheep is, in the closing verse of the parable, represented as the repenting of the sinner. When, therefore, guilty and forlorn, without hope of ac- ceptance in anything, save in the merits of his Saviour, the sinner turns to God, he is found ; or, borrowing a side-light from the third parable here, when the prodigal comes to himself, and says, " I will arise, and go to my father," at that 24 THE LOST FOUND. moment lie is found bj Christ. What is seen in heaven is Christ laying His loving hand upon the sinner, and the angels hear him, saying — " I have found that which was lost ;" but what is seen on earth, is the sinner laying his behoving hand on Christ, and men hear him crying — " I have found my deliverer. I will go with Him, for salvation is with Him." But these are not two distinct things — they are involved the one in the other, so that you cannot take the one from the other without destroying both. How they are thus united we can no more tell than we can explain how the soul resides in the body ; but the fact is patent. Jesus lays hold of the lost soul at the very moment when the sinner repents ; and so, if you wish Him to be your Saviour, you must turn in repentance from yourselves to Him, and give up every hope of salvation save in Him. But there is yet another aspect of this finding which must in nowise be lost sight of. I mean the tenderness of the shepherd. There is no stroke of anger inflicted on the sheep, there is no word of rei3roof addressed to it ; there is noth- ing but a soft caress, as, saying to it the while, " poor thing, how far you have wandered, and how worn and weary you are," he hfts it upon his THE LOST SHEEP. 25 shoulders, and carries it to the fold. So it is with Jesus and the sinner. The Saviour casteth not up to him his past iniquities. He doth not chide nor scold. " He upbraideth not." He doth not wound the penitent's heart bj taunting reference to his former guilt, but he receive th him joyfally. He lets " the dead past bury its dead." He for- gets the past, and exults only in the happiness of having recovered that which was lost. Or, as the prophet Isaiah phrased it — " The bruised reed he doth not break ; the smoking flax he doth not quench." You need not be afraid of Him, O sinner ! He will receive you with de- light, and treat you with the utmost gentleness. IV. But I cannot conclude without referring, even though it must be now in the briefest terms, to the joy manifested by God over the sinner s return. " And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them. Rejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that like- wise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance." The home- coming here can hardly be identical with the 26 THE LOST FOUND. finding of the lost one. It must rather, I think, be understood of the introduction of the saved one into heaven, bj Jesus, at the last. Yet the joy over him is not delayed till then, though at that moment it becomes higher than before. Let me illustrate. You have lost your child, and one of the most trusted members of your family has set out in search of her. He is long away, and weary days and weeks you wait for news. At length, however, there comes from the great city or the far off continent a telegram from the seeker saying that he has found his sister, and that he is making arrangements for bringing her home as soon as possible. Of course, the mere receipt of his message gives you joy ; but when, at length, your loved one is brought home, that joy is in- tensified by the consciousness that sh6 is safe again in your embrace. Now, your gladness at the receipt of the telegram corresponds to the joy in heaven over the sinner's repentance, while your higher joy at the home-coming of your child is symbolical of the gladness which will be caused by the entrance into heaven of each new ran- somed spirit. Nor need we wonder at this joy. It is over a successful enterprise. It is over the deliverance of another soul from ruin. It ia THE LOST SHEEP. 27 oyer anotlier added to tlie heavenly inhabitants. It is over another trophy of the Bedeemer's power to save. It is over a fresh manifestation of the manifold wisdom of God. But why should there be more joy over the repenting sinner than over the unfallen angels ? Because there is greater delight in the recovery of that which has been in danger, than in the possession of that which has never been imper- illed. The mother knows this, as she looks with keenest interest on the child that has been drawn, like another Moses, from out the very river of death. The greater the peril we have encountered, the deeper the thrill of joy when we are brought safely through it. There is much to interest in the new-built ship. As the crowds gather round to see her launched, they hold their breaths awhile, until she slips in safety down into the element whereon she is henceforth to ride, and then they rend the air with deafening cheers. That is joy — a true and real joy. But suppose a steamship that has left the port of Liverpool to cross the Atlantic, has not' been heard of for many days after the date of her expected arrival here. Twenty-five or thirty- five 28 THE LOST FOUND. days liave gone, and still tliere are no tidings. Underwriters refuse to take another risk upon her. She is given up for lost, and the relatives of those who were on board go mourning as for the dead. As a forlorn hope, a government steamer is sent out to ciniise about, if haply she may find the missing ship, and at length, when all expectation of seeing her again had been abandoned, the news is told throughout the city that she has been telegraphed off Sandy Hook, and is coming up the Narrows in tow of the vessel which had gone to seek her. How ea- gerly would thronging multitudes crowd the wharves to see her as she came in ! How tears would mingle with their very cheers, and the joy would radiate out over all the land, calling forth gratitude from every heart. That too would be gladness, but oh how much deeper, more thrilling, more intense than that which was over the vessel newly launched. Let the illustration dimly sha- dow forth to you the greater joy that is in heaven over a saved sinner, than over the nine- ty and nine who have never been imperilled. Such a joy, O sinner, you may occasion there. Repent, therefore, even now, and as the news is told on high, a thrill of gladness will pour along THE LOST SHEEP. 29 the ranks of the redeemed. The angeUc hosts will share in the delight, and God Himself will own the rapture of the moment as he says, " Eejoice with me, for this my son was dead and is ahve again ; he was lost and is found." THE LOST COIN. " Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not hght a Ciiudle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it ? " And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me ; for I have luuud the piece which I had lost. " Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." LUKJE, XV., 8-10. THE LOST com. The illustrations of some teachers, drawn as they are from the most recondite walks of science, need more explanation than the truths which they are intended to elucidate. But it was not so with those employed by Jesus. With a true poet's eye, He saw the beauty and spiritual significance of the commonest things ; and so the casual incidents of daily life, the ordinary objects of familiar ob- servation, as well as the habitual occupations of the household and the farm, were introduced by Him into His discourses in such a way as to cap- tivate the attention, instruct the intellects, and move the hearts of His hearers. Hence, over and above the spiritual truths which they were designed to expound, we have in many of His parables exact delineations of actual scenes in Eastern hfe ; while in that w'hich we have just 34 THE LOST FOUND. read we have a most realistic description of just SLicli an occurrence as might have happened last week in any of our own homes. Nothing that I could say could bring either this woman or her work more vividly before you ; and any attempt to paraphrase the language in which they are here described would only end in a weak and watery dilution of the original production. Leav- ing it, therefore, to speak for itself, let us proceed to its interpretation. Like that which goes before it, and with which it is so closely connected, this parable was pri- marily intended to illustrate the fact, that there is joy in heaven over a repenting sinner, and so to reprove the Scribes and Pharisees for the scorn which they meant to express when they said of Jesus, " This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." It describes a loss, a search, a recovery, and a joy consequent thereon ; and in all these respects it is only a reproduction of the story of the bringing home of the lost sheep. But there are some things suggested here which did not come out in our treatment of the former parable, and to these we shall now restrict our- selves. They centre in these three things : the THE LOST COIN. 35 thing lost, the means used for its recovery, and the kind of joy consequent on its being found, I. Look at the thing lost, and you \\'ill find sev- eral points of importance thereby suggested. It ivas a coin. That is to say, it was not simply a piece of precious metal, but that metal moulded and minted into money, bearing on it the king's image and superscription, and witnessing to his authority wherever it circulated. You remember how, when his enemies, seeking to entangle Jesus, asked whether it were lawful to give tribute to Csesar or no, He requested to see a coin ; and when one had been produced. He said, Whose is this image and superscription ? They repHed, Caesar's. Whereupon He said, Render unto Csesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's. Now, reading this para- ble in connection with that narrative, we think of this coin as stamped with the king's image, and designed not only for a medium of exchange, but also for a testimony to the royalty and right of him whose likeness was impressed upon it. What a beautiful thing is a new piece of money ! How sharply cut are the letters which are imprinted on it ! how finely relieved the likeness of the monarch 36 THE LOST FOUND. and how clear and glittering its polislied surface ! Can we fail to see in it a type of the human soul, when first it came, new-minted, from the Creator s hand ? It had enstamped upon it His image in knowledge, righteousness, and hohness, and was designed by Him to be a willing witness-bearer to the rightfulness of His authority and the legiti- macy of His throne. He made man in His own image, after His own likeness ; and so it is not by any means a stretching of the figure here to see in this piece of money, as it was at first, a re- presentation of the soul's original dignity. But the coin loas lost, and this suggests that in sinful man the image of his Maker has gone out of sight, and the great purpose of his being has been frustrated. For any good which the piece o.f money, so long as it was lost, did to its owner, or for any testimony which it gave to the authori- ty of him whose image it bore, it might as well have been non-existent. And, similarly, the sin- ner does no good in the world ; he gives no glory to God ; he is of no service to God, so far, at least, as the promotion of His honor, and the ac- knowledgment of His authority, are concerned. Instead of obeying God, he positively dishonors Him ; and in those parts of his nature on which, THE LOST COIN. 87 more especially, God's image was impressed, lie is emphatically lost to God. His intellect does not like to retain God in its knowledge ; his heart has estranged its love from God ; and his life is de- voted to another lord than his Creator. He is lost. Yet he is not absolutely worthless. The coin though lost J has still a value. If it can be re- covered, it will be worth as much as ever. It may be blackened with rust, or soiled with mud or covered over with dust, but it is still silver — nay, it is still minted silver, with traces of the superscription and the image that gave it cur- rency. Even so the human soul is valuable though lost. It has in it the silver of immortality ; and, depraved though it be, its intellectual powers, its moral freedom, its soaring ambition, and its upbraiding conscience, tell not only of its former grandeur, but also of its present importance. Even as he is, man is the most valuable beincc in the world. There is nothing equal to him, nothing almost which we can place second after him. There is a wide, yawning, impassable gulf between him and the highest of the lower an- imals. He has a dignity to which they can lay no claim. He has a character which is unique 38 THE LOST FOUND. and peculiar to himself. In spite of " theories of development," and recent perverse efforts on tlie part of some to claim kindred with the ape, there is in every human being a moral conscious- ness that marks him man, and not brute, to- gether with such feelings after the future life as stamp him immortal; and this is the sil- ver of the coin that once bore the distinct and well-defined lineaments of Jehovah's im- age. But yet, again, this coin tvas lost in the house. The woman did not let it fall as she was crossing the wild and trackless moor, neither did she drop it into the unfathomed depths of ocean. Had she done so, she would never have thought of seeking for it ; she would have given it up as irrecoverable. But, knowing that it fell from her in the house, and, therefore, that it must have rolled away somewhere within its walls, she set about a vigorous search, sure that it could be found. Now, this points to the fact that the soul of the sinner is recoverable. It is capable of be- ing restored to its original dignity and honor. It has in it still, potentialities as great and glorious as those which ever belonged to it. There are many things which cannot be renewed. No hu- THE LOST COIN. 39 man alcliemy can bleach into its original wliite- ness the blackened snow which has been trodden into miry slush upon the city streets ; no artistic ingenuity can replace upon the peach the downy softness of its skin when you have rubbed it off upon the ragged wall ; no manufacturing skill can restore to the violet the velvet softness of its leaf after it has been once crumpled up into many folds ; but the soul of man, even in its most be- sotted and depraved condition, is capable of be- ing renewed, and may yet become a pure and holy denizen of the heavenly home. For " Who are these in white robes ? and whence came they ? They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ;" they are souls renewed by the power of God's Spirit through the work of His Son. This lost coin, then, has a past history behind it, and a future capability before it. Its past history bids us despise no fel- low-man, since, no matter v/hat may be the color of his skin, or the complexion of his character, there are yet traces of his old dignity upon him, letters of tlie superscription that once told whose image was impressed upon him. Its fu- ture capability bids us despair of no individual sinner ; for though he be lost to all that is no- 40 THE LOST FOUND. ble, and lovely, and holy, and divine, tliere is a possibility of his recovery. The coin has not fallen into the dark inaccessible mountain ravine, nor into the depths of the uufathomed sea, but it has gone amissiug in the house, and so it may be found. The lost sinner may be recovered. Oo, then, ye whom Christ has found, and seek him ; nor count any labor too great, or any sac- rifice too costly, if only you may be able to add another gem to the Eedeemer's crown. II. This brings me to the consideration of the search, wherein we have also some things sug- gested which are peculiar to this parable. East- ern houses are constructed in such a way as to keep out the light and heat of the sun as much as possible. They have few windows, and even the few which they have are shaded with such lattice-work as tends to exclude, rather than ad- mit, the sunbeam. Hence the rooms are gener- ally dark ; and so, even if the coin were lost at noonday, the light of a candle would be re- quired to seek for it. Nor was there, in Eastern dv/ellings, the same scrupulous cleanliness that we love to see in many homes among ourselves. The floors were THE LOST COIN. 41 often covered with ruslies, which, being changed only at rare intervals, collected a vast amount of dust and filth, among which a piece of money might be most readily lost. Hence the lighting of a candle and the sweeping of the house were the most natural things to be done in such a case. But whom does this woman represent ? and what, spiritually, are we to understand by the lighting of a candle and the sweeping of the house? The woman, in my judgment, symbol- izes the Holy Spirit. Mr. Arnot, indeed, in his valuable work upon the Parables, says that this view is untenable, alleging that, since the shep- herd who lost the sheep re]3resents the Lord Je- sus Christ, the woman who lost the coin must represent Him too. But if this reasoning be worth anj'thing, we must carry it further still, and affirm that the father who lost the son in the next parable represents the Lord Jesus. This, however, would be to contradict the uni- form tenor of the interpretation of that match- less story in all ages ; for every reader of it, not to say every writer on it, understands the earthly parent to typify and illustrate our Fa- ther who is in heaven. If, therefore, in the 42 THE LOST FOUND. third parable, the loser is God the Father, and not the Lord Jesus Christ, we see no inconsis- tency in maintaining that the woman here must be understood as representing the Holy Spirit. Nay, rather, there is to our thinking a beauty and completeness in this interpretation that all others lose. That which was lost, whether we call it sheep, or coin, or son, was lost by the Godhead, and in these three parables we have brought before us a part, at least, of the work and office of each of the three Persons in the great plan of redemption. We took the leaving of the ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness, and the going after that which was lost, to signify the incarnation of Christ and all to which it led ; we shall take the prodigal's reception by his father to illustrate God's manner of welcom- ing a returning sinner ; and so, naturally, we un- derstand the woman here to represent the Holy Spirit ; and we look upon the means which she employed in her search for the lost coin as de- noting the efforts made by the Holy Spirit for the recovery of a lost soul. Now let us see what these were. She light- ed a candle, and swept the house, and searched diligently. The light most evidently represents THE LOST COIN. " 43 the truth ; but what are we to make of the sweeping ? Some would take it to ilkistrate the purifying work of the Holy Ghost in the heart. But that view cannot be maintained, since the purifying of the soul is not a work in order to, but rather subsequent upon, its first recovery. I take it rather, therefore, to represent that dis- turbance of settled opinions and practices — that turning of the soul, as it were, upside down — which is frequently seen as a forerunner of con- version ; that confusion and disorder occasioned by some providential dealing with the man, such as personal illness, or business difficulties, or family bereavement, or the like, and which fre- quently issues in the coming of the soul to God ; for here also chaos often precedes crea- tion. Truth introduced into the heart, and pro- vidential disturbances and unsettlements in order to its introduction — these are the things sym- bolized by the lighting of the candle and the sweeping of the house. The truth which the Holy Spirit employs for the purpose of conversion is the Word of God, all of which has been given to men by His own inspiration ; and the special portion of that Word which He uses for His saving work is the. won- 44 THE LOST FOUND. drous story of the cross. " The truth as it is in Jesus " — the fact that " God so loved the world that he gave his onlj-begotten Son, that whoso- ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" — the faithful saying, that *' Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin^ ners ;" — this is the light which He employs. No new revelations does He now bestow. He uses still this old gospel — the good news of sal- vation through Him who died for our offences, and rose again for our justification. In one word, the truths which centre in the cross of Calvary, are those which the Spirit employs in the conversion of men. It was so on the day of Pentecost ; it has been so in every period of Itrue spiritual revival ; it has been so in every in- dividual conversion. They say that in some of our large millinery establishments many needles xare lost in the course of the day ; a,nd that in peeking to recover them, instead of going down /upon the carpet and wearifully picking each one 'up, a young woman goes round at night, holding a magnet near the floor, attracting thereby every minutest particle of steel, and so recovering all. So, in seeking to regain lost souls, the Holy Spuit goes through the world employiug the mag- THE LOST COIN. 45 net of the cross ; everywhere, He seeks to draw men to Himself bj the attraction of its love, and constiains them to live by the faith of Him who loved them and gave Himself for them. But not all at once do men attend to, and be- lieve, this truth of the gospel. The magnet will operate wherever there are no neutralizing ele- ments near ; but Avhile the soul is sunk in dej^ra- vity, or engaged in worldly pursuits, or absorbed in earthly pleasures, it feels not the charm of the Redeemer's love. Hence means must be used to destroy the counter-attractions of the world, which keep men from God. Or, taking the figure of my text, if the light of the candle fall immedi- ately upon the coin, the seeker will at once pick it up ; but if the piece of money have dropped on a rush-covered floor, and lie concealed beneath the straw and the debris of Aveeks, these must be removed before the rays of the candle can reveal the coin. That is to say, in plainer language, men do not usually attend to the truth at once. They are pre-occupied with business ; they are engrossed in other things, and the Bible remains beside them unread ; the good news of the gos- pel are uncared-for and unbelieved. But then comes the sweeping of the house. There are pro- 46 THE LOST FOUND. vidential disturbances in business ; or tbere are family bereavements ; or there is personal sick- ness ; or there is the awakening of. conscience to a sense of guilt, by the hearing of some solemn discourse, or, as the result of some other of the manifold expedients which God the Holy Spirit can employ, there is a general upturning of the soul, like the confusion that is created in the home by the annual house-cleaning ; and just as, at these yearly lustrations, a great many things, which had been neglected for a long while, come forth into prominence, and compel you to settle w^hat you will do with them ; so, in the soul's dis- turbance, the long-buried questions about sin and salvation come up, and the man begins to cry, What must I do to be saved ? Then as some Evangelist by his side exclaims, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt he saved,'^ he turns in faith to Jesus ; and that moment, the candle's beams falling upon the piece which was lost, the Holy Spirit finds and rejoices over the recovered soul. You see then, the meaning of this seeking and sweeping : every time you are brought face to face with trial ; every providential unsettlement that comes upon you ; or, to use Jeremiah's ex- THE LOST COIN. 47 pression, every " emptying out from vessel to ves- sel " to which you are subjected, is a new sweep- ing of the house by the Holy Spirit seeking for the recovery of your soul. Has He sought you yet in vain ? Oh, let him seek so no longer ; but through this discourse, describing to you your in- dividual history and circumstances, and quicken- ing anew your conscience, let Him find you now, as with devout repentance you exclaim, " Lord, I beheve ; help thou mine unbelief !" III. We come now, in the third place, to look at the joy over the recovered coin ; and here, as before, we shall restrict ourselves to that which is peculiar to this parable. In the story of the lost sheep, while the social character of the joy is cer- tainly referred to, the specialty in the gladness of the shepherd over its finding lay in the fact, to which prominence is given in the appended note of interpretation, that it was greater than over the ninety and nine which had never strayed. Here, however, the peculiarity is in the sociality of the joy. The woman, when she had found ber money, " called together her friends and neigh- bors, saying. Rejoice with me ; for I have found the piece which I had lost." This is peculiarly 48 THE LOST POUND. true to Eastern life. Even to this day, as I have been informed hj one who is well acquainted with the domestic habits of the people of Pales- tine, the jewels of a Syrian woman consist for the most part of pieces of money. They are her own exclusive property, which her husband may not claim, and having descended to her as heirlooms from her mother, they are handed down by her to her daughters. They are commonly worn tied in the hair, the larger pieces generally hanging from the ends of the braids. Thus one falling out of the hair, might be very readily lost ; while as it formed a part of the dowry of the woman, in which all her descendants had an interest as well as she, we can easily see how its loss and re- covery would be almost equally affecting to them all. It was quite natural, therefore, for an Eastern woman to call for her female friends to rejoice with her over the finding of one of her .treasured heirlooms. But gladness everywhere is diffusive. We cannot have the highest kind of joy if we must keep it to ourselves. There are certain sorrows which must find vent in tears, else death will ensue to the individual ; and in this connection every one remembers the words in Tennyson's fine song, " She must weep, or she will die." But there is THE LOST COIN. 49 the same thing at the other extremity. There are joys which, if we may not utter them, cease to }oe joys, and which, if we cannot share them with others, will seriously injure ourselves. The pent-up emotion will choke us ; but the utterance of it to others, and the making of them par- takers of our gladness, renders it safe for us, and in the end not only makes them happier, but makes our own hearts more joyful. Every reader of ancient history remembers the Heureka of Archimedes ; and each individual can tell of times in his own experience when, eager for an opportunity to utter his gladness, he has gone long miles to make it known to those, who, he knew, would be sure to rejoice with him. But, in this respect, man is but the far-off image of God. His joy also, if I may dare to use the words, needs society to make it complete j and the fact that there are those beside Him to whom He can make known the story of each re- covered soul, redoubles His own gladness, and dif- fuses among them His own divine delight. We know not, indeed, with certainty, who these are in heaven, who are here symbolized by the friends and neighbors of the woman — whether they be the unf alien angels, or pure beings, summoned 50 THE LOST FOUND. from other worlds, that they may hear the mar- vellous history which centres in this planet, earth ; but, whoever they may be, they enter into the feelings of the Most High, and the utterance of their congratulations is the occasion of the highest happiness of Deity. Nor let it be sup- posed that this is a mere fanciful idea, for which there is no foundation in Scripture apart from the teaching of this parable. What says Paul — " God hath created all things by Jesus Christ : to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places^ might be known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph. iii. 10.) Now, these words mean, if they mean anything at all, that through the Church, God designed to show to principalities and powers in heavenly places His manifold wisdom. In the manifestation of this wisdom God has His high- est work, and, in its appreciation by spiritual in- telligences, through the Church of Christ, He has His greatest joy. Farther than this I dare not go ; but up to this point we must advance, if at least we would rightly interpret this delightful parable. Now, strictly speaking, my present work is done. I have shown you as clearly and succinctly THE LOST COIN. 51 as possible, what I judge to be the special teach- ings of this story ; but I cannot conclude with- out giving prominence to two thoughts which may be of some practical value to us all. In the first place I remind you of the possibility of the recovery of any soul. There is no one one beyond hope. No sinner need despair of himself, and no worker in the service of Jesus need despair of the conversion of any one for whose recovery he is ardently praying and ear- nestly working. However depraved or degraded a man may be, he is not beyond hope so long as the truth of the Gospel may be proclaimed in his hearing. 1 cannot put this thought more strikingly than it has been presented in the fol- lowing lines, selected from the poem entitled " Beautiful Snow," especially when they are read in the hght of the interesting history which has been told, with what truth I know not, in con- nection with them. " In the earlj' part of the American war, one dark Saturday morning, there died in the Commercial Hospital, Cincinnati, a young woman, over whose head only two and twenty summers had passed. She had once been possessed of an enviable share o.f beauty ; but, alas ! upon her fair broTV had long been 52 THE LOST FOUND. written the terrible word, Fallen. Among her personal effects was found, in manuscript, the " Beautiful Snow," which was immediately car- ried to a gentleman of culture and literary taste, who was at that time Editor of the *' National Union." In the columns of that paper, on the morning following the girl's death, the poem ap- peared in print for the first time." It is all ex- quisite, but for my present purpose, I give only these three verses : Once I was pure as tlie snow, but I fell, Fell like tlie snow, but from heaven to bell ; Fell to be trampled, as filth of the street ; Fell to be scojBfed, to be spit on, and beat ; Pleading, — cursing, — dreading to die, Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread ; Hating the living, and fearing the dead. Merciful God ! Have I fallen so low ? And yet I was once like the beautiful snow I Once I was fair as the beautiful snow, With an eye like a crystal, a heart like its glow ; Once I was loved for my innocent grace — Flattered and sought for the charms of my face ! Father, — mother, — sisters, — all, God and myself I have lost by my fall ; The veriest wi-etch that goes shivering by THE LOST COIN. 53 "Will make a wide sweep, lest I wander too nigh ; For all that is on or about me I know, There is nothing that's pure as the beautiful snow. ******* Helpless and foul as the trampled snow, Sinner, despair not ! Christ stoopeth low To rescue the soul that is lost in sin, And raise it to life and enjoyment again. Groaning, — bleeding, — dying, for thee. The Crucified hung on the cursed tree ! His accents of pity fall soft on thine ear. •* Is there mercy for me? Will He heed my weak prayer? O God ! in the stream that for sinners did flow Wash me ! and I shall be whiter than snow." Take to thyself, O sinner, the message of these lines, and make for thyself the prayer with which they conclude. No matter how aggravated thine iniquities have been, or how deeply depraved thy spirit may be, there is mercy for thee. Thou mayest yet be forgiven and renewed, if only thou wilt trust in Him who is " able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him." Finally, let me once more insist upon the truth, that the most God-Hke work in which any one can engage is that of seeking to save the lost. Look, again, at the teachings of this chapter. In the first parable we have the Divine Sou, the 54 THE LOST FOUND. Good Sliepherd, coming into the world after the lost sheep ; in the second, as we have just seen, we have the Divine Spirit putting forth His agency for the recovery of sinful souls ; and, in the third, we have the Divine Father welcoming, in the fullness of infinite tenderness, the returning penitent. Are we wrong, then, when from these things we deduce the inference, that the great work and happiness of Godhead are connected with the salvation of lost souls ? But if this be so, it will follow that man is then likest God, and most really a partaker of His happiness, when He is seeking to save the lost. Do you want to be, in the highest sense, a fellow-laborer with God ? do you wish to be a sharer of the loftiest joy which even Deity can know ? Then go forth to seek and to sate that which was lost. Care not what sacrifices it may involve, or what discom- forts it may entail upon you. Never mind, though it may require you to go to dens of in- famy or haunts .of sin. These are not so far be- neath you as this evil world was beneath the Eternal Son of God ; neither are they anything like so far removed from your refinement of na- ture, as this world was from His infinite j)urity. Go, and He wiU take care of you, and give you THE LOST COIN. 00 success. Were some fashionable lady to drop her diamond ring into the gutter, she would not scru- ple to thrust her ungloved hand into the filthy sewage, if thereby she might recover her precious ornament ; and shall not we expose ourselves, if need be, to contact with moral and spiritual im- purity, if only we may be instrumental in recov- ering the immortal jewel of a human soul, and re- storing it to its Creator's hand ? The great nov- elist has no more touching or pathetic chapter in his voluminous writings than that which tells how the big, burly, honest sailor set out from his boat-house on the Yarmouth shore, to seek for her who had been ruined by the villain whom he took to be his friend ; and when we shall feel about lost sinners as he did about her ; when we shall go forth in a search for them as earnest, as long, and as persistent as was his, we shall begin to be disciples indeed, and shall know something of the joy that is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Earth has no happiness like to his who is instrumental in finding the piece that was lost, and restoring it to its Heavenly Owner. May God give us more of this celestial happi- ness 1 THE PRODIGAL SON. I. THE DEPARTURE. "And he said, A certain tt^t i >iad two sons : « And the younger of them said to his father. Father, give me the por- tion of goods that faUeth to me. And he divided unto them his living. '•- And not many days after, the younger son gathered aU to-ether and took his journey into a iar country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. » And when he had spent all, there arose a mlehty famine in that land • and he ieg^ to be in wanL ' "And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country • and he eent him into his fields to feed swine. " And he would fain have fiUed hia beUy with the husks that the swine did- eat ; and no man gave unto him." LCKB, XV., U-lfl. THE PRODIGAL SOX. I. THE DEPARTURE. Not without many misgivings do I venture on the exposition of this parable. It is in itself so perfect, as holding up the mirror to nature, that I am afraid to touch it, lest I should dim its sur- face by defiling fingers j and its main teachings are so clearly defined, that I fear lest, in seeking to explain and enforce them, I should prove to be like that commentator on the " Pilgrim's Pro- gress " whose notes were harder to be understood than the original allegory. Nevertheless, as it is a necessary appendix to, and completion of, the truth portrayed in those which I have already considered, I am constrained to enter upon its examination ; and my prayer is, that the Spirit of Him who spake it may rest upon me while I seek 60 THE LOST FOUND. to illustrate it, and may keep me from saying any- thing that may mar its force, overlay its beauty, or destroy its pathos. Like those by which it is preceded, it was de- signed to rebuke the cold-hearted and self-right- eous exclusiveiiess of the Scribes and Pharisees, and to show them that, in despising Jesus for re- ceiving sinners and eating with them, they were altogether out of harmony with Him who rejoic- eth over one sinner that repenteth. But it differs from them in that, while they illustrate the man- ner in which God seeks the lost sinner, it de- scribes the result of that search in the voluntary return of the sinner himself. They view the mat- ter from the Divine side, and let us see the efforts which God has put forth in the incarnation of His Son, and the agency of His Spirit, to find and save that which has been lost. This regards the subject from the human side, and shows us the sinner rising from his degradation and returning to his Father. Yet they are not so much two se- parate and distinct things, as two sides of one and the same thing. Admirably has Mr. Arnot said here, " It is not that some of fallen human kind are saved after the manner of the strayed sheep, and others after the manner of the prodigal son ; THE PRODIGAL SON. 61 not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home by His power, and that another of his own ac- cord arises and returns to tlie Father. Both these processes are accomphshed in every conver- sion. The man comes, yet Christ brings him ; Christ brings him, yet he comes." The Spirit sweeps the house and finds him ; yet he himself of his own free choice arises and goes to his Father. Again, in the two preceding parables, little or nothing is said as to the sinner's departure from God, and his misery and degradation in his lost condition. The main points which they illustrate are the seeking, the finding, and the joy resulting from the recovery. The loss which they describe is rather a loss sustained, if I may so say, by De- ity ; and scarcely any hint is given of that which is incurred by the sinner himself. Here, however, the misery of man away from God, and in the far land of sin, is set in the forefront ; and no- where in the whole range of literature, whether sacred or profane, have we a more vivid exempli- fication of the awful truth, that " the way of trans- gressors is hard." In the episode of the elder brother, too, we have something unique and peculiar to this par- 62 THE LOST FOUND. able. In the former allegories there is no jarring or dissonant note in the chorus of rejoicing over the recovery of that which was lost ; but here, that in the mirror which Jesus held up, the Scribes and Pharisees might see their own like- ness as well as His, we have one surly and sour dissentient, who virtually says to his Father, what they had said to Jesus, " Wilt thou receive a sinner and eat with him ?" But, without lingering longer on the mere out- lines of the story, let us look at the incidents which it records. We are introduced into a fa- mily whose home, for anything that appears to the contrary, may have been in some sweet ru- ral' retreat, with every added accessory of com- fort and enjoyment. There is a father and two grown-up sons, and for a time all is happiness and harmony. But at length, weary of the mo- notony of the country ; or chafing under the sense of restraint which the father's, presence created ; or moved by that spirit of adventure and desire to see life and the woxld, which most lads feel in the opening days of manhood ; or perhaps wishing merely to do for himself, to make his own way, and to secure his own inde- pendence, the younger son desires to go away. THE PRODIGAL SON. 63 He has talked of it often before, but bis mother has always won him over by her affection ; and for her sake he has consented to stay yet awhile. Now, however, the fever is in his veins again. Go he must, and shall. So, as the less of two evils, his father gives him a proper out- fit, and in the most handsome manner, antici- pating the division of his property that would be made in any case at his death, he bestows upon him his portion. The farewells are soon said, and awaj^ he goes. He is bound for a far land — the El Dorado of his dreams, where mo- ney is to be made, and greatness is to be achieved, and whence, perchance, he hopes to re- turn, in the evening of his days, a nabob, rolling in wealth, the envy of every beholder. That was the ideal before him ; but, ah !- how different was the reality ; when he reached his destination, in- deed, everything looked bright, and it was his in- tention to do well. Had anybody then lifted the veil of the future, and shown him himself as he was so soon to be, all tattered and filth}', in the swine-herd's den, he would have shrunk back aghast, and shuddered as he cried, " Impossi- ble !" And, doubtless, if it had required only a single step to bring him to that degradation, that 64 THE LOST FOUND. single step would never have been taken. But thus in all likelihood it happened. He became connected with evil companions ; they led him gradually into wicked courses ; and so long as he had money to spend with them, they were assidu- ous in their attentions, and superlative in their flattery. When, however, his means ran done they left him to himself. Famine arose, and, to keep himself from starvation, he Avent and joined himself to — or, as the words might perhaps be better rendered, he glued* himself to, or, he fast- ened himself, upon — a wealthy citizen, who sent him to herd his swine ; and such was the extrem- ity to which he was reduced, that he would glad- ly have fed from the trough from which they ate, or on the pods of the carob-tree by which they were fattened. Think that to a Jew the swine was an unclean, abhorred animal, and then you will have some faint idea of the degradation which, in the esti- mation of His hearers, Jesus here portrays. But have we nothing like this in our own land, and in our own day? Who has not known some youth who has come from the country to one of our * The old Scotch word to "sorn" upon one, seems to me to be the exact equivalent of the original here. THE PRODIGAL SON. 65 large towns, and gone through just such a career? He has left behind him a pious father and a pray- ing mother, and come with high hopes of success in hfe to some of our great offices, that he may fit himself for after eminence. But his fellows laugh at his countrified manners, and ridicule what they call his old-fashioned scruples, until, at length, weary of their scorn, and worn out by their importunity, he goes with them to their haunts of sin. He learns to like strong drink, and quaffs his beer at every hour of the day. He frequents the theatre, and counts it a high honor to have the entree into the green-room, and to be on terms of familiality with those who act upon the stage. He is easily led on after all this to lascivious indulgence ; or, mayhap, he keeps his betting-book, and begins to talk oracularly about this or that " event ;" but when the settling-day comes round, he finds that he has hopelessly in- volved himself in debts, misnamed of honor, which he cannot meet. His master's money is at his command, and his emergency constitutes an apparent necessity, which he does not care to resist. He uses that with which for other pur- poses he had been entrusted. He absconds; is hunted by detectives, and, hemmed round by tel- 66 THE LOST FOUND. egrapliic wires on every side, he is soon appre- hended and brought back, hke Eugene Aram, *' with gyves upon his wrists." Then, after stand- ing in the prisoner's dock, disgraced in the very citj^ in which he had dreamed of winning honor, he is led away to the degradation of the peni- tentiary, or the drudgery of convict labor. Or, if the issue be not such as I have described, it may be something equally repulsive. He maj become a habitual drunkard, sacrificing everything to an abominable appetite ; or, w^orse even than that, he may develop into a contemptible " black-leg," preying upon the unsuspicious, and making him- self jackal to some gambling haunt, until, at length, stabbed in some deadly quarrel, or mad- dened by the delirium of intemperance, he goes to his own place, unwept, save by the mother, who, hearing of the tragedy in her far-off home, wrings her hands, and cries, " O my son ! my son ! would God I had died for thee ! my son ! my son !" For remember, it is not every prodi- gal's history that has the issue of this parable, and in many, many instances the grave comes only to cover, with its dark green pall, the more dreadful experiences that lie beyond. It may seem, indeed, aside from the main line of spirit- THE PRODIGAL SON. 67 ual exposition to dwell upon such things as these; and strictly speaking, so it is. But I am looking now at the parable, not as an allegory, but as a literal narrative which it may well enough have been. And it is not aside from my -mission as a minister, especiall^^ in a large community like this, to bring out strongly and broadly the danger of such practices as those to which I have alluded. I might fortify my remarks, and vindicate the dark picture which I have drawn, by many sad examples taken from the records of our various courts ; but I prefer to give you one or two cases which have passed under my own observation. I have seen, sitting shoeless and shirtless on a cab, ' joining himself to ' the driver, if haply he might get anything out of him, a young man who had inherited a large fortune, who had been in the same classes with me at school, and who had sat as a student for the ministry on the same benches with me at College. I have visited in a Liver- pool prison where he was under sentence of six months' imprisonment for stealing a watch, which he had pawned for drink, a man who was an M.A. of a Scottish University, and who had been Principal of a College in a foreign land. I have had, as a beggar at my door, a man of my own 68 THE LOST FOUND. age, brouglit up in the same street with me, who had squandered a large patrimony in such courses as I have described ; and as I saw the grey hair of his premature old age streaming in the wind, and heard him call me by the old famihar name of my boyhood, as he besought me for assist- ance, I could not but think of these words, " And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty fa- mine in the land, and he began to be in want." Similar cases, I feel confident, have been wit- nessed by almost all before me who have attained to middle hfe ; and with such occurrences in my remembrance, I cannot allow the present oppor- tunity to pass without uttering a few words of warning to those young people here who have only recently left the home of their childhood for the hfe of the great city, or who have passed from the routine of the school, to the stir, and activity, and temptations of modern business. Two things I would especially urge : Beware of evil companions. Wait till you see what is in men before you trust yourselves to them. Do not allow yourselves to be led away by appearances. Soft speeches, flattering words, a winning manner, and an artless way, may all be assumed only the better to decoy you. Distrust # THE mODIGAL SON. 69 all those who would ridicule to you the sanctity and associations of home. Have no confidence in any one who would endeavor to shake your faith in the Scriptures, or attempt to lead you away from the observance of the Sabbath, and the enjoyment of the sanctuary. Do not permit your- selves to be moved from your convictions by the swagger or the ridicule of any one. Have faith in God, have faith in yourself, and cultivate the friendship of those only who are the friends of Jesus. Seek to find friends in the church. Call upon and cultivate the acquaintance of your min- ister. Lay yourself out for work in connection with the congregation which 3'ou wish to join, and thus you will find resources for the spending of those leisure hours which have so much to do with making or marring the life-history of every man. I know that you will say, in response to all this, " Yes, it is very good ; but then congregations are so exclusive that one may attend a church regu- larly for months, and no one speak to him." Now, to a certain extent, I admit the truth of your words ; and I would say to the members of this church, that it is a sacred duty which they owe to Jesus, to show interest in all who come thus, strangers and unbefriended, into the midst of us. 70 THE LOST FOUND. Who can tell but that some youth, who has been worshipping here for weeks, and has since gone into evil courses, might have been led upwards in- stead, if some of us had only taken him by the hand ? When your own children go away from you to a strange place, you will count it the high- est favor that could be shown to you if some Christian friend will but open his heart to them. As ye would, therefore, that men should do to you, do ye even so now to them ; and, for the sake of the parents who are praying far away, show kindness to the children, who are strangers here. But while I frankly admit the exclusive- ness of modern church life, and bitterly bewail it, I would say also to my young friend who is a stranger. There may be a good deal of the same exclusiveness in yourself. If you make no ad- vances, you can scarcely wonder if no advances are made to you ; and, in general, I am sure of this, that if you will only offer your services for Christian work, and get in among the active peo- ple in the church — in Sunday-school operations, or in those of any of the other associations — you will soon feel yourself at home. Your heart will get a local centre, and you will become so inter- THE PKODIGAL SON. 71 ested in higher things that the temptations of the city will cease to charm 3-011. But, as a second advice, I would say. Beware of evil habits. Easily learned, they are most diffi- cult to be overcome. At first slender as " the spider's most attenuated thread," they thicken round us into cords by which we are bound into the most utter helplessness. No slavery may for one moment be compared to that of the man who is the servant of his lusts, and the victim of per- nicious habits. Withstand beginnings, therefore. " Look not on the wine when it is red in the cup." nor let your strength be eaten out of you by its bewitching influence. There is a coiled adder at the bottom of the steaming bowl, and, however it may be concealed at first, it will " at the last " sting you into spiritual death. Hear the confes- sion of one of the finest of English Essayists, who unhappily knew from experience only too well the degradation which he describes, and take the warning which he cries to you out of his depths : " The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry to all those who have but set afoot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is dehcious as the opening scenes of life, or 72 THE LOST FOUND. the entering upon some newly-discoVered Para- dise, look into my desolation, and be made to un- derstand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will ; to see his destruc- tion, and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself ; to per- ceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to fix a time when it was otherwise ; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin ; could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly-looking for this night's repetition of the folly ; could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be de- livered, — it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its manthng temptation — to make him clasp his teeth, * And not undo them, To suffer wet damnation to run through them.' "* Alas ! poor Lamb ; may thy words to-day prove words of power to every one of us ! But intemperance is not the only evil habit of * See Essays of Elia : The Confessions of a Drunkard. THE PEODIGAL SON. 73 which you need to have a care. Flee youthful lusts. Keep yourselves pure ; for sensuality, too, lays a deep hold upon the man, and drags him down to utter loathsomeness. One who spake from his own life-history has said regarding it, that it " hardens a' within, and petrifies the feel- ing." It poisons the imagination of a man, cor- rupts his heart, and depraves his entire nature ; so that though he may, to the shame of all socie- ty, retain his place in the most fashionable circles, and be courted by parents for the daughters of their home, the sensualist is ever the most selfish of mortals, having the passions of an animal, while the conscience which should restrain them is hardened into insensibility and impotence. Be on your guard, too, against the seductions of gambling. Do not bet even " the thousandth part of one poor scruple " upon any event, whether it be the issue of a game, or the winning of a race, or the rolling of a ball. Say not to me that you do so only for a small amount : the prin- ciple is the same, whether the stake be a cent or a thousand dollars. It is by littles that the habit is acquired ; yet when it has obtained the mas- tery I question if there be one other passion which so absorbs and overpowers the soul as that 74 THE LOST FOUND. of betting ; and in these clays, when among the " old nobility " of Great Britain the fortunes of dukedoms and the estates of earls have been gam- bled away ; when the youth of our commercial cities are staking right and left upon politicians and pugilists, and upon dogs and horses, and when even in our exchanges so much of what is called business is as really gambling as anything you will see at Homburg or Wiesbaden, it is sure- ly time to call a halt. Go not, I beseech you, in these ways of iniquity : the gate may be wide, the path may be flowery, and, for a time, pros- perity may seem to attend you ; but it leads down- ward, and its end is death. Enter not through the gate, therefore, but " stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Thus far I have been dealing with this story as if it were only a literal narrative ; and I could not, with any justice to my own feelings, or any proper fidelity to you, withhold from you the lessons which, even from this aspect of it, we may learn. But we should greatly mistake its mean- ing if we should restrict its reference to those who are accounted prodigals by their fellow-men. It THE PEODIGAL SON. 75 has a spiritual significance underlying its external incidents ; and, thus viewed, every man is a prod- igal. God is the Father whom we have left ; sin is the far land into which we have wandered ; and the famine pictured in these verses is but a faint delineation of the spiritual desolation to which we have reduced ourselves by our iniquity. This, which is the interpretation proper of the first por- tion of the parable, I will try to put before you briefly ere I close. I. Here is, first, tlie nature of sin. It is a de- parture from our Heavenly Father — a determina- tion to be independent 'of God — a taking of the ordering of our lives into our own hands — a chaf- ing under the restraints alike of the Divine law and the Divine love, and a setting up of ourselves as our own gods. Cunningly did Satan say to our common parents at the first — " Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil ;" and still this self- assertion lies at the root of our ahenation of heart from God, and rebellion of hfe against Him. But yet more, this alienation of heart is from a Father ; this rebellion is against One who has done more for us than ever mother did for the son 76 THE LOST FOUND. of her love. I know no more touching exposi- tion of God's Fatherhood than that which this parable furnishes. Some, indeed, will hare it that not until Jesus was revealed as the eternal Son, did God declare Himself the Father of any one in our human nature. But this opinion will not stand before such a parable as that which we are now considering. I willingly allow that only through Jesus Christ does God now, consistently with His personal honor and righteous adminis- tration, receive sinners back again as sons into His home. But surely, in the relationship be- tween the prodigal and his father, here, we have a type of that Avhich existed between God and man before the fall. If this be not so, then, for any significance that hes in the p'lirase, you might as well have read, " A certain king had two sub- jects ;" or " A certain master had two servants." But if you so read, you take away the whole pith and pathos of the story. Hence we cannot but think that here we have a reference to God's ori- ginal fatherly relationship to the human race. Now this, while it explains why He was so anx- ious to get His lost children back, and gives them such a welcome when they do return, does also, from the other side of it, deepen the guilt of the THE PRODIGAL SON, 77 sinner. His offence is not merely that of disobe- dience to a master, or treason against a king, but it is, in combination with both of these, ingrati- tude to a Father. We condemn, as the most cul- pable of all things, the cruelty of a son to his yenerable parent : and we have scarcely language strong enough to express our detestation of such conduct as that of Absalom to his father. Yet, in God's sight, we have been doing the very same thing, and we have given him occasion to say concerning us, as Israel of old, "Hear, O heav- ens, and give ear, O earth ; for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up child- ren, and they have rebelled against me." II. But, secondly, we have here brought before us thi consequences of sin. The first stage of ini- quity is 7'iotousjoy. We must not keep that out of view. There is a pleasure in it, of a sort ; for if this were not so, men would not be found indulging in it at all. There must be some kind of exhilaration in the flowing bowl, or in the wild thrill of sensual gratification, or in the gains of dishonesty. In every sin there is something of riot. " Stolen waters arc sweet," perhaps, just because they are stolen ; but the sweetness does 78 THE LOST FOUND. Bot last long. It turns to bitterness in the belly ; for, see, as the next result, the ivaste tvJiich it occa- sions. It wastes money, as we have to-day al- ready remarked ; it wastes health ; it wears the body to decay ; but that is not the worst. These things here are set forth as but the outward indi- cations of the waste of the soul. And, in truth, what a blasting thing sin is on the human spirit ! How many who, in their youth, gave high prom- ise of mental greatness, are now reduced to the merest drivellers, unable either to speak or write save under the influence of opium or alcohol \ Ah ! even as I speak, there rise up before me the fair forms of many noble fellows who, humanly speaking, might have counted on the highest po- sitions in their several profession, but whose in- tellects have been weakened by their own enor- mities. Then, morally, how does sin blight the conscience, eating it out of the man, until he is ready for any iniquity ! How it weakens the will, so that he who once stood firm as the oak against all storms, bends now like a reed before the most trifling breeze ! Never will I forget how a wife, speaking once of the weakness of her husband's will before the fascination of drink and evil com- panions, said : " He used to be a firm and noble THE PRODIGAL SON. 79 fellow ; but lie is a bairn noo." Yes, a child in weakness ; but, alas ! alas ! very far indeed from being a child in innocence. Sin had shorn the locks of his strength ; and the Philistines, in the shape of his own appetites, had bound him cap- tive. "Where has the father's portion gone in such cases ? Where are the good gifts of God to the soul now ? And who, in sinners like these, can discern almost the faintest trace of the image of God which once they bore ? But observe, farther, as the next consequence, we have famine — i.e., spiritual want, and a crav- ino- after something that yet cannot be found. There is nothing in iniquity that can give con- tentment to the spirit. " God has made us for Himself, and our souls are restless till tl>ey rest themselves in Him." We might illustrate this is the history of sinners of every social position : but, perhaps, you will be more convinced of the truth on which I now insist if I give you a few cases of men who had no external want unsatis- fied, and yet were tormented by an aching void in their hearts, craving for a happiness that would not come at their desire ; and I gladly appropri- ate here the words of Dr. Hamilton, in his most su^f^estive Lectures on the Book of Ecclesiastes : 80 THE LOST FOUND. — " We could call into court nearly as many wit- nesses as there have been hunters of happiness, mighty Nimrods in the chase of Pleasure, and Fame, and Favor. We might ask the statesman, and as we wished him a happy new year, Lord Dundas would answer : ' It had need to be a happier than the last, for I never knew one hap- py day in it.' We might ask the successful law- yer, and the wariest, luckiest, most self-compla- cent of them all would answer, as Lord Eldon was privately recording when the whole bar' envied the Chancellor, * A few weeks will send me to dear Encombe, as a short resting-place betwixt vexation and the grave.' We might ask the golden millionaire : ' You must be a happy man, Mr. Rothschild.' * Happy ! me happy ! What ! happy ! when just as you are going to dine you have a letter placed in youv hand, saying, " If you don't send me £500, I will blow your brains out !" Happy ! when you have to sleep with pis- tols at your pillows.' We might ask the world- famed warrior, and get for answer the * Miserere ' of the Emperor-Monk (Charles Y.,) or the sigh of a broken heart from St. Helena. We might ask the dazzling wit, and, faint with a glut of glory, yet disgusted with the creatures who THE PRODIGAL SON. 81 adored liim Yoltaire would condense the es- seDce of liis existence into one word, * ennui.' And we might ask the world's poet, and we would be answered with an imprecation by that splendid genius (Byron,) who • DranJi every cup of joy, heard every trump Of fame ; drank early, deeply drank ; drank draughts That common millions might have quenched, then died Of thkst, because there was no more to drink.' " * But, descending from these cases, let us ask our- selves if, apart from God's favor, we have ever had any real, soHd, lasting joy ? Let us analyze our experiences in sin, and see if they have not proved that there is no satisfaction in iniquity but that, ever as we went on committing it, our souls began to be in a greater and yet greater want. Oh ! shall we never become wise ? Shall we never learn that there is nothing but misery while we are away from God ? Ye wlio are seek- ing after happiness in earthly things, forbear. Ye are pursuing a quest more visionary than that of the child, who sets out to catch the pillars of the many-colored rainbow in the far horizon. * Hamilton's " Eoyal Preacher," pp. 26, 27. 82 THE LOST FOUND. Never, never can you obtain what you are seek- ing, save in God. Turn, tlien, and beseech Him to give you that which you desire. " Inchne your ear, and come uuto him : hear, and your soul shall live ; hearken diligently unto him, and then your soul shall delight itself in fatness ;" for, if the universal experience of humanity on this point were to be gathered into one expres- sion, it would only indorse the words of Pollok : " Attempt how vain, "With, things of earthly sort, with aught but God, "With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love, To satisfy and fill the immortal soul — To satisfy the ocean with a drop — To marry immortality to death, And with the unsubstantial shade of time To fill the embrace of all eternity." Give over this mad endeavor, then. The crav- ings of your heart for happiness, if you only knew it, are inarticulate yearnings after God ; and the dissatisfaction and misery you feel in a hfe of sin, if you could but aright interpret them, are but the voice of your Father within you, saying evermore, " Come home to me ! Come home to me !" let Him not call in vain ; but arise now and return to Him ! THE PRODIGAL SON. II. THE RESOLUTION. " And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger I " I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him. Father I havo Binned against Heaven, and before thee, " And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hii'ed 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." LiDZE XV., 17-20. THE PRODIGAL SON. II. THE RESOLUTION. We left the prodigal in the far land feeding swine, and longing to fill himself with the husks on which they fattened. To such a depth of de- gradation had he suuk, that he was willing to eat out of the same trough with the unclean animals which, as a Jew, he so abhorred. Yet, in this seeming " lowest deep," there was a " lower still," for even this poor luxury was denied him. *' No man gave unto him." The very swine were pre- ferred to him, as belonging to a higher caste than he, and he was not allowed to share their fare. Ah, what a bitter humiliation was there in all this ! He had left his home with many visions of prosperity and greatness beckoning him od, and 86 THE LOST FOUND. this was the result ! Yet, bitter as it was, this experience was the first thing that revealed him to himself. As sometimes the drunken husband, reel- ing home intoxicated, is sobered on the instant by the sight of his dead wife, and has most vividly recalled to him the day when, in the highest hope and in the holiest affection, he had pledged himself to love and cherish her ; so this setting of the swine before him stung the prodigal into a consciousness of his thorough desolation and his terrible extremity. Till now he had kept on hoping that *' something would turn up " in his favor, and enable him to retrieve his fortunes ; but all such anticipations are henceforth gone. When the hogs are set above him, it is all over with him. He has nothing more to look for. Either he must make up his mind to die of starvation, or to go back to his father's house. This is now his only alternative. Hitherto the choice which he has set before him has always been be- tween one or other of different ways of support- ing himself in the far countrj^ ; but now the idea of maintaining himself there is seen to be out of the question, and, for the first time, he shapes the alternative to himself thus — Will I remain here, and die of starvation ? or will I go back to THE PRODIGAL SON. 87 the home which I so foohshly slighted in the days of the past ? Not all at once would he decide upon his course. Even as he thought of going back, difficulties would start up before him. His consciousness of guilt would for a time un- man him. Shame, too, would bid him stay. Haply, also, the fear of being upbraided by his father for the folly of his conduct would give him pause. But, over and above these, there was the strong, unanswerable, and importunate argument of hunger. " At least, there is plenty to eat at home," he thought ; " and though I may have to eat that plenty with bitter herbs, it will be better than starvation here." So at length, after a strong inward wrestle, the resolve comes out, clear and strong — " 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." Plain, straight- forward, humble, yet earnest, are the words which he determines to take with him ; and that nothing may intervene between the purpose and the performance, he arose, just as he was, and set out on his homeward way. The picture is per- fect ; and in the history of many an outcast 88 THE LOST FOUND. whom treachery has first ruined, and then tram- pled under foot, it has been literally exempli- fied ; nor do I know a kinder service we can do to any poor prodigal whom the tide of our city life may drift to our doors than just to put him in the way of returning to his earthly father's house ; for, not unfrequently, that is only the first step in the return of the erring one to God. Perhaps such an one, led by the providence of God, may have come casually into this house to- day. Let me entreat him to go home, and glad- den the hearts of those to whom he is dear. By the memory of your mother's tenderness, and your father's prayers ; by the recollection of your childhood'^ joys, and of your boyhood's happi- ness ; by the obligation under which you feel your parents laid you for your education, and the oj)portunities of well-doing which you en- joyed — by all that is holiest and most treas- lu-ed in the associations of the past, I implore you to go home. And if words will not move you, then let this touching scene impress your heart. Behold that mother in her Highland cottage, as she kneels at evening prayer. Draw near and listen to the words she utters, as the big tears course down her cheeks : " Lordy' she THE PRODIGAL SON. 89 says, "have mercy on that poor lassie, ivherever she may he this night. Let her not die in her sins. Bid bring her hack to me again, that I may hring her hack to Thee.'' She rises from her knees, goes out to look through the darkness if, per- chance, the wanderer may be near. She comes in and shuts the door, but leaves it unbarred, saying the while — " / luill not holt it, lest she should come ivhen I'm asleep, and' I tvould not like her to find my door locked against her." Oh, is there nothing in all this to impel you home- ward ? Go back ! go back ! the door into a true parent's heart, like that of the home of which I have spoken, is usually on the latch to an erring child, and the truest joy you have known for many a day will be when you weep out your penitence in your father's arms. But we must not forget that this is not mere- ly a literal history. It is a parable, having a spir- itual meaning. The prodigal, as we saw in the last discourse, represents the sinner — and the scene depicted in the verses now before us de- scribes what we may call the crisis of conversion. Now, thus regarded, the language is most sug- gestive, and illustrates these important things, namely, the sinner's true condition so long as he 90 THE LOST FOUND is away from God, the means by wliicli this con- dition is changed, the reflections made by him after this change, and the resolution to which his reflections lead. I. In the first place, we have brought before us the true condition of the sinner so long as lie is away from God, "When he came to himself :" that imphes that in some very real sense he had not been perfectly himself. Generally, commen- tators have supposed that the reference here is to insanity, and they tell us, with perfect truth, that the sinner is, in some respects, like a mad- man. He follows delusions as if they were reali- ties, and he treats reahties as if they were delu- sions. His moral nature is perverted, just as the lunatic's intellect is beclouded ; and, in I'egard to duty, he makes mistakes similar to those which the maniac makes in ordinary matters. So he may well be styled mad ; but there is this solemn difi'erence between him and the ordinary lunatic, that while insanity cancels responsibility, the sin- ner is not only blameworthy for his moral per- versity, but his responsibility continues in spite of it. Although, however, there are thus many in- teresting and striking points of resemblance be- THE PRODIGAL SON. 91 tween tlie condition of the maniac and that of the sinner, I am not sure that the " coming to him- self," in the verse before me, suggests the being " beside himseK," as the condition out of which he came. Equally it may imply that he was " be- neath himself," or that there was in him a cer- tain unconsciousness, out of which he required to be roused before he could be thoroughly himself. When, for example, one has fainted away and re- covers, we say that " he has come to himself again," implying that his consciousness has re- turned. Now, in my view, this is the preferable way of looking at the analogy of my text. The moral nature of this poor youth was virtually dead. His conscience had become seared, so that he was, in a manner, unconscious that there was such a faculty within him. It was there, but it was asleep. It was there, but it was so pre- cisely as the intellectual nature is in a man when he is in a faint : it was inoperative, it was not consciously possessed by him. At length, how- ever, roused by a sense of his degradation, and the touch of God's Spirit, it awoke, and then he came to himself. The sinner's higher nature is dormant in him. He has a spiritual faculty which allies him with God, and which, 92 THE LOST FOUND as the noblest part of his nature, is most really and truly himself. But he is not conscious that he has it. It is dead within him. He has overlaid it with trespasses and sins. Hence he is not himself. I do not mean, of course, that his personal identity is gone, but rather that the no- blest part of his nature has been as good as lost by him. The spiritual, as distinguished from the mere intellectual, has become virtually non-exist- ent. His animal nature may be as strong as ever. His intellect may be brilliant and acute. Even in regard to morals he may be irreproachable by his fellow-men ; but in that part of his being that allies him with God he never dwells. He lives, so to say, on the ground-floor of the soul-house, on earth and among earthly things. His appetites, passions, and desires are strong ; his intellect even, may be vigorous and clear ; but it is only exer- cised regarding natural things. He does not know those things which can be only " spiritually discerned." His soul has no outlook toward hea- ven, and that part of his nature which was in- tended to be its crowning glory, and which allies him to heaven, is shut up and tenantless, like a dusty attic. He is not himself. THE PRODIGAL SON. 93 11. But we have here, secondly, the cliange of tlds condition: "he came to himself." A new light broke upon this youth in the midst of his dark- ness. He saw things as he had never before perceived them. Not till now did he discover the guilt and issue of the course which he had been pursuing ; and never in his past experience had his father's house seemed to him precious. For the first time since he left his home, he awoke from " the dream his life-long fever gave him," and things as they were stood unveiled before him. Now, so it is with the sinner. His conver- sion, too, is in its first stage an awakening. New thoughts stir within his soul ; new feelings vibrate in his bosom. He begins to see what before had been to him almost as a landscape is to a man born blind. It is not that new things are called into existence outside of him, for all things are there as they were before. It is rather that his eyes have been opened to see them ; and the wonder of his whole subsequent life is, that he never saw them until then. He per- ceives now the danger in which he stands ; and recognizing the ability and willingness of God to help him, he cries, like Peter, weltering in the w aters, " Lord, save me ; I perish." Such being 94 THE LOST FOUND. the change whicli is here called a coming to himself, the question presents itself, How is this alteration brought about in the sinner ? The answer is important, and though it will take us into the deep things of spiritual experience, I shall endeavor to put it clearly and distinctly be- fore you. Let me ask you to recall what I have already said regarding the relation of the three parables in this chapter to each other. The first two set before us God seeking and finding the sinner, through' the incarnation of the Son, and the agency of the Spirit. The third shows us the sinner seek- ing God. But we are not to suppose that these are separate pictures of distinct conversions. On the contrary, they are all three true of every real conversion. Viewed from the divine side, God seeks the sinner ; but we, who see only the earthly side, perceive only the sinner rising and returning to God. It did not lie in the Saviour's way in this story to illustrate either the connection of His own sacrificial work, or that of the Spirit's agency, with conversion. Indeed, the introduction of anything like a representation of either of these would only have marred the unity of the parable. But in dealing with conversion, we have THE PRODIGAL SON. 95 to remember that there is a divine side to the sub- ject as well as a human one, and that the full truth regarding it is to be had, not by taking each side separately, but by combining both. Thus it is a fact that, from first to last in a sinner's con- version, there is and must be the special agency of the Divine Spirit ; but it is also a fact that there is in it a human activity. The Spirit works ; but then He does so in harmony with the* consti- tution of the human soul, and in such a waj that the soul is not conscious of His operations as anything distinct from the workings of its own faculties. The Spirit goes before the truth to prepare its way, by providences and other means at His disposal. The Spirit comes with the truth to give it power. This He does in a manner which He has not been pleased anywhere to ex- plain. But still it is in connection with the truth that He operates ; and His operations are not of such a nature that the soul can identify them at the time as His, and as apart from the workings of its own powers. To the eye of a spiritual be- ing, God's agency is conspicuous from the begin- ning, and the whole work may be called His. To the eye of a man, the sinner alone is visible, and the whole thing may be said to be done by him- 96 THE LOST FOUND. self. The full truth is, that the man is working out his own saivation, because God is working in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. Or, as Jonathan Edwards has expressed it, the whole thing is brought about by " GodlsjumLkinjgxdl^id mans qctmgjdV' Yet, even in reference to God's working, let us remember that He employs always appropriate means. The great end He has in view is to awaken the soul to spiritual things, to get it to perceive its danger, and to apprehend the means of salvation which He has provided. Now, by the dispensations of His providence, He may dispose the soul to receive the truth on these subjects in many ways. Affliction is one of the most common, — disease, as it were, ringing the alarm-bell of the soul, and rousing it to face eternal realities. Thus it was with Chalmers, and many more, in whom the crisis of being has been as signally marked. Sometimes, again. He uses the early associations of home, and through means of them procures the opening of the heart, which had remained shut even against the pre- sence of severest affliction. Thus it was with the poor sailor lying in the hospital of one of our seaports, who remained unmoved by every appeal addressed to him, until the missionary, perceiving THE PRODIGAL SON. 97 tliat lie was a Scotsman, sat down beside his bed and sang, to the fine old tune of Coleshill, the Psalmist's words, as rendered in the metrical version used in the churches and homes of his native land : Such pity as a father hath Unto his children dear, Like pity shows the Lord to such As worship Him in fear. When he heard the old familiar strain, he started up at once, and said, " Who taught you that ? I .haven't heard it since I heard my father sing it at family worship." So, the truth having found an entrance through the portals of memory, the missionary was not long in leading him to Christ. Occasionally, again, the heart is opened, and the man awakened, through the means of natural affection. Thus it was with him of whom John Ashworth tells, who left his breakfast-table one Sabbath morning for a few minutes to arrange with some comrades about going out dog-fighting in tho forenoon. When he returned, he saw tears standing in the eyes of his little daughter, as she sat finishing her meal, and ready dressed for Sun- day school. " What ails thee ?" said he, as he kindly looked at her. " I don't want you to go 98 THE LOST FOUND. with these bad men," she answered. " It is the Lord's day, and God will be sure to see you." "Bless the child," said he; "how she talks! Never mind me, dear, but go to school." Still, however, she sat in sorrow, and as the tears flowed thickly down her cheeks, she said again, " Don't go, father." " Well, then," said he, " I won't go. So go to the school with thee, and be happy." And he did not go, but in the evening went with her to public worship ; and she found for him the places, for she was the better scholar of the two. And by and by, as the result of all this, he came to himself, and went to his Father, and is now an honored and useful member of the Christian Church. Nay, sometimes even the ribald pro- fanity of the wicked man has been the means em- ployed by G.od to rouse him to his higher self. During the days of Whitefield and his coadjutors, Mr. Thorpe, and several like-minded companions in Yorkshire, undertook to mimic and travesty the preaching of these gi'eat Evangelists. One after another, they mounted a table, and set them- selves to caricature one or other of God's ser- vants. Mr. Thorpe's turn came last, and, in the regardlessness of his spirit, as he ascended the table, he said, " I shall beat you all." The Bible THE PRODIGAL SON. 99 was Landed to him. It opened — how, lie knew not, but those who saw God's side of the affair, would perceive His hand open it — at Luke xiii., 3, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." The moment he read, his soul was impressed. He saw clearly the nature and importance of the sub- ject ; and he afterwards said, if he ever preached with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it was at thaf time. When he had finished — levelled, as it were, by the recoil of the gun which he had thought to fire at God's servants — he retired to weep over his sins, and became in the end an able and useful minister of the New Testament, Or, not to multiply instances, God may use the ordinary means of curiosity and th-e preaching of the truth to lead up to this awakening. So it was with one of whom I have been told, who was of excellent moral character, a zealous ad- vocate of total abstinence, and a most intellect- ual man, but, unhappily, also an unbeliever. Passing along the street one Lord's-day morn- ing, he came to the door of a church where a minister preached who was well known for his labors in the temperance cause, and he said within himself, " I have heard of this man ; I should like to go in." But he had not been 100 THE LOST FOUND. within a lioiise of God for ten years, and he felt ashamed to venture. He went away fully a quarter of a mile past the church, but still he felt as if he must go back. So he returned and entered the sanctuary. In the course of the sermon, something was said which stirred him to the very depths. His knees smote against each other. He sat trembling and astonished. He came again. He heard a Bible-class an- nounced for a certain evening. He went to that. He became interested in the inquiries which were there prosecuted ; and at length, coming fully to himself, he went to his Father, writing to the minister whom God had used all through in these words : — " With the long and dreary winter that has passed away has gone the win- ter of my unbelief ; and while I attribute this result to a higher than human power, permit me to say that you have been the channel through which that power was conveyed, first from the pulpit, and afterwards by your kind and generous sympathy, for which I hope I shall ever be truly grateful." Now, I have brought out these cases to show you how in conversion, all, from the human side, is perfectly natural, while from the divine all is of God. The doc- THE PRODIGAL SON. 101 trine of the special agency of the Spirit in con- version, thus viewed, is a parallel instance to that of the great doctrine of the special provi- dence of God. It might, indeed, almost be de- scribed as special providence working in the de- partment of spiritual things ; and God's agency and man's agency are united in conversion, just as they are united in the actions of every day. We cannot be saved without the Spirit's agency ; but neither, again, can the Spirit save us except through our own activity in believing .and obey- ing the truth. The Spirit'.s agency is necessary to faith and repentance, 'but it is the sinner that believes and repents. It is impossible to say wiiere the one agency terminates, and the other begins. Eather, as it seems to me, do they mu- tually interpenetrate each other, only, as these par- ables make plain, God's seeking always precedes the sinner's rising. < III. But it is time now that we should con- sider the p^odigaVs reflections on coming to himself. They were twofold — having regard, first, to him- self, and, second, to his father's house. In reference to himself, he said — " I perish with hunger." Now, as I have already hinted. 102 THE LOST FOUND. there was distinct progress here. Never before had this youth allowed himself to think that death by starvation was to be the issue if he re- mained in the far land; but so soon as that clearly shaped itself to him, he took his resolu- tion to arise. It is the same with men, and their return to God. I believe if we could nar- row down the choice of the sinner to one or other of these two alternatives — everlasting de- struction as the consequence of guilt, or eternal salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ — we should have no difficulty in impelling him to de- cide in the right direction ; but because he per- sists in believing that there is some loophole left him, through which he may escape, even if ^le should -not accept salvation through Christ, he continues indifferent to the statements of the gospel. I do not think that there are many men who believe that they are going to everlasting perdition. There are, indeed, multitudes of de- plorably wicked persons ; yet I cannot think that they ever really consider that they are on the way to hell. They have the feeling that things are not just so bad with them as that yet ; they fancy that, somehow or other, they hardly know how, in spite of all that they are, THE PRODIGAL SON. 1C3 and all tliat they liave done, they shall still escape ; and so they go thoughtlessly on. They imagine that God will not, as they say, " be strict to mark iniquity with them ;" or they think that sin cannot be such a dreadful thing after all ; or they flatter themselves that they will, at some future period, take thought and repent ; and they say, meanwhile, " There's time enough yet." Thus each one has his own vague hope that, af- ter all, " he shall not surely die." So it is that Satan keeps continually repeating the old lie wherewith he deluded our common parents to their ruin. But when the sinner comes to him- self, aU these deceptions are swept away. He sees only the fearful fact, " ' I perish.' Away from God, I must be, I cannot but be, eter- nally destroyed ;" and this, taken together with his belief in God's offer of salvation, stirs him up to arise and to return to his Father. Awake, O sinner ! to the danger in which you stand. If you continue as you are, there is noth- ing but destruction before you. If you neglect the great salvation, there is no possibihty of escape for you. Between two such alternatives, v>'ho would hesitate as to his choice ? But the prodigal's reflections had reference 104 THE LOST FOUND. also to his father's house. He said — " How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare !" Bread ! — once he thought of greatness and wealth ; — now, however, he will be content with bread — yea, if he could only have what many a time he had seen his father's ser- vants lay aside as not requked by them, he would be content. There was enough at home, if he were only there. Now, similarly, the sinner, in conversion, comes to the persuasion that there is plenty for him in God. If you ask how this is brought about in him, I answer, by his behef of the statements of the gospel ; for it is here that we must bring in the doctrine of the Cross. It is possible for one to be aroused to a sense of his danger, and yet go no further. Many have been " awakened," as the phrase is, without being converted. They have had a glimpse of the awful truth, that they were perishing ; but they have not believed the good news of salvation in Jesus, and so they have continued in their sins. They found that they were in want, but they did not seem to know that there was bread in their Father's house. In every real conversation, how- ever, we have both things believed ; and the be- lief of both is connected with the Cross of Christ, THE PRODIGAL SON. 105 for there the sinner learns both how fearful a thing sin is, and how full of love to him God is. He sees, in Christ's death, an atonement for sin of infinite value, and unlimited sufficiency. There is enough in it to meet his need — yea, enough and to sjMve ; salvation, not for him alone, but for all who choose to avail themselves of it ; and the belief of that, coupled with his appall- ing sense of present danger and the necessity, impels him to resolve. Let the sinner take note of this, that he may be encouraged, not to go on in sin, but " to repent and be converted." There is ho23e for him. " Christ Jesus is the propiti- ation for the sins of the whole world. " He is able to save unto the uttermost all that cometh unto God. by Him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." "Who would starve with such plenty at hand? who would die eternally with such life put in his offer ? There is no stint in the provision which God has made for us in the gospel feast. There is enough and to spare. Enough for all the guests, and yet abundance besides. "Yet there is room" — room in the love of God's heart ; room in the sufficiency of the work of Christ ; room in the Church be- low ; room in the sanctuary above ; room for sin- 106 THE LOST FOUND. ners of every age and degree, and color and clime ; — yea, room, O starving one ! for thee, if only thou wilt take thy place at the board, and put on the wedding garment which thy Lord has furnished. IV. I dare not conclude without noticing, how- ever briefly, the resolution to ivldcli those reflections led. " 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." This youth determined, there and then, to go back to his home-; not, however, in a dogged, sullen, defiant spirit, but in a tho- roughly penitent disposition. He blames no one but himself ; he resolves to make a full and frank acknowledgment of his folly ; and, instead of claiming anything as a rightful portion, he is will- ing to be treated as a servant. Now, taking this as representing the sinner's repentance, one or two things need to be noted, as suggested by it. In the first place, there is an unreserved con- fession of sin : " Father, I have sinned against heaven and hefore thee," He does not soften THE PRODIGAL SON. 107 matters, and speak of his " faults " or liis '' fail- ings." He does not say, in a self-extenuating way, " I have been a little wild ;" but he puts the plain truth forth in all its hideousness, " I have sinned r' Neither, again, does he cast the blame on others. He does not say, " So-and- so led me astray ;" " If it had not been for the companions by whom I was surrounded, I had never come to this ;" or, " If I had only been in other circumstances, I would have kept myself from iniquity." No ; his language is, " ./ have sinned ; the guilt is mine. I have no wish to evade it, or explain it away. I am ashamed of myseK." Yet, once more, the enormity of his wicked- ness before heaven is that which most distresses him. He had brought many evils on himself. He had inflicted great injuries upon others ; but that which most burdens him now is, that he has sinned against God — the Father who has done so much for him, and has even, after all, and, above all, sent His Son into the world to make atone- ment for his guilt. This is painful to him in the extreme, and he can do nothing but weep over it ; but his tears, in the estimation of God, are of more value than the glittering diamond, 108 THE LOST FOUND. for they tell Him that He has found at last His loug-lost child, not simply in the outward form that stands before him, but also in the heart out of which this sorrow comes. This is true peni- tence. This is the broken spirit, exhaling an odor sweeter far than that which came from the alabaster vase of spikenard in Mary's hand. This is the contrite heart which the Lord will not de- spise. But, looking again at the resolution before us, we find in it a determination to personal exer- tion : " / luill arise r The prodigal did not wait till some one else should come and lift him, and carry him to his home. He was fully per- suaded that if ever he reached his father's house, it could only be by travelling the distance for him- self : so he arose and went. Now, similarly with the sinner, though the distance between him and God is not physical, but moral, yet, if he would be saved, there must be the putting forth of his own individual human agency. He does not require to rise from the spot where he is, and go away to some far distant country, in order to return to God. He may pass through the whole transition while yet he is in one and the same earthly spot. The coming is spiritual. It is the THE PRODIGAL SON. 109 restoring of his heart to God : the giving "back of his love, and loyalty, and allegiance to his Heav- enly Father : the surrender to God of the sover- eignty of his soul which, in the outset of his ca- reer, he had determined to retain to himself. Now, this restoration of the soul to God, this giv- ing back of itself to the Father, is the soul's own act ; and in this self-submission to Jehovah — this rendering back of itself by the soul to God, as its proper possessor — we have the consummation of conversion. No doubt, as I have said, the Spirit is in it all ; yet the soul gives itself up^ and we must be on our guard against delaying this self-renunciation on the plea of ivaiting for the Spirit. To put off, on this ground, would be just as foolish in us as it would have been in the prodigal here to have said — " I will wait till some one lifts me up, and carries me home." Multitudes, however, think of the Spirit's agency as of some influence which, distinct from, and external to, themselves, is to take them, and, apart from any action of their own, carry them into salvation. But this is an utter delusion. The Spirit works for us by working in us, and through us ; and His agency is not such as we can distinguish, apart from the common opera- 110 THE LOST FOUND. tion of our faculties. Hence, if we wish tlie Spirit to lead us to give back our souls to God, we must ourselves seek to make this spiritual sur- render ; and when we do, we shall discover that He has been beforehand with us, and has al- ready anticipated us with His quickening grace. Finally, here, this resolution was promptly act- ed upon : " He arose and ivent to Ms father.'' Just as ho was, all tattered and filthy, he went back. He did not say, looking at his garments the while, " I cannot go in this plight ; I must wash mj^self, and change my raiment, and then set out." Had he mused in that fashion, he would proba- bly never have returned ; but he went as he was. So, in conversion, the sinner gives himsell back to God just as he is. He does not seek to make himself better. He delays not to work out for himself a robe of righteousness. He waits not even for deeper feelings, or for more intense conviction. He puts himself into God's hands, sure that, for Christ's sake. He will make him all that he should be. " Such as I am," he says, " take me and make me such as Thou wouldst have me to be." This is the whole matter. This only ! but all this ; and if there be any one here to-day moved by the presentation of these THE PRODIGAL SON. Ill truths, let me beseecli him now, where he is, and as he is, to give himself back to the Father, with- out reservation and without delay, " Just as thou art, without one trace Of love, or joy, or inward grace, Or meetness for the heavenly place , O guilty sinner, como I" " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the wa- ters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread* ? and your labor for that wllich satisfi- eth not ? hearken diligently unto me, and let your soul dehght itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me : hear, and your soul shall live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest/' " The Spirit and the bride say. Come ; and let him that hear- eth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.*' Spirit of the Living God ! let some soul to-day hear this heavenly home-call, and re- turn to Thee. THE PRODIGAL SON. III. THE RETURN. " 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 ahve again ; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." Luke, xv., 20-24. THE PRODIGAL SON. HI. THE KETUKN. Many years have passed since the prodigal's de- parture from his father's house, but all things there have continued outwardly as they were. The same air of prosperity is about the place. In spring-time the carol of the plough-boy, and in harvest the song of the reaper, have been heard as before. If anything, the old people have grown more venerable in aspect ; their gait has become more stooping, and their movements are slower ; while the wrinkles on their fore- heads have deepened, and grey hairs are here and there among their locks ; but the same neat attention to appearance characterizes them both, and a calm contentment sits upon their faces. 116 THE LOST FOUND. Their son lias conducted himself with decorum, and by his energy and care has relieved his fa- ther from all anxiety as to worldly things ; and their servants have been so long beneath their roof, that they have come to regard themselves, and to be regarded by others, as members of the family. To the casual visitor everything would seem delightful, and many might have envied the gladness that appeared to dwell among them. But external things are no sure indication of that which lies beneath them ; for, even in this home, there is a skeleton. A sorrow, all the heavier that it is never spoken, lies upon the parents' hearts, revealed only by the long-fixed, abstracted gaze that comes occasionally across their countenances, or by the heavy, deep-drawn sigh, which, in thoughtful moments, one or other heaves. No in- genious questioning of yours. will evoke their con- fidence, or draw from them a description of their cross ; but, when you go, at eventide, to the ser- vants' hall, you may hear the elder among them whispering to the younger something about mas- ter's " other " son ; and when you ask them wdiat they mean, tliey will tell you how, long ago, there was a younger son in the family — the idol of them all. They will never weary of praising his THE PRODIGAL SON. 117 frank opeu-lieartedness, so different from the stiff preciseness of bis brother ; thej will rehearse to you the jokes he made, and the songs he used to sing, and the kind things he did to all about him. They will relate, mayhap, how, when one of them was seized with sudden and dangerous illness, it was he who rode through the pelting rain to hasten for the medical man ; it was he who sat up through the dreary night-hours, seeking to soothe the sufferer ; it was he who was always ready with his help and his hand — the darling of the family, the pride of the country-side. Then, with the gathering tear in the eye, they will tell how something took him, they never found out precisely what ; and he left the house and went away, no one knew whither, and had never been heard of since. Then they will assure you that for all so quiet and calm as he looked, " master " had never been the same since he had gone, but went about the house, seeming to have lost a part of himself ; and that even yet, day after day, he would go to the hill-top yonder, and look this way and that way, as if he were expecting him to come again ; but that he never named his name, and they only knew how keen were his feelings ia the matter from one constant petition in his family 118 THE LOST FOUND. prayer — " That God might bring the wanderer home." Ah ! how many houses in the land have just such a skeleton within as this ! Would God that in eacli case the issue were as it was here ! For, lo ! rounding the corner of the lane, the long- lost son is seen " afar off." Many a weary foot he has travelled, sustained by the prospect of reaching home at last ; yet when at length the old familiar place comes first into his view, strange misgivings fill his heart. Hope spurred him on till then, but now fears begin to work. " Will my father receive me after all ?" " How can I face him in this pitiful plight ?" " Would it not be better to go back ?" These and kindred ques- tionings arise within him, and he lingers in timid irresolution. But before he is aware, his falter- ing feelings are banished in a way at once the most unexpected and the most effectual. For his father had been, as his custom was, upon the outlook for him ; and though his raiment was ragged, and his face haggard, and his whole ap- pearance changed, there was still that about him, in walk, or shape, or feature, by which at once the old man recognized him. And he ran and embraced him, and kissed him. There were no THE PRODIGAL SON. 119 Tvords spoken on his side ; for, when tlie heart is fullest, it can speak only through tears. Like Ja- cob with Joseph, " he fell on his neck, and wept a good while." No taunt about the past was ut- tered ; no gibe escaped him about the present appearance of his son. It was enough that it was he come home again ; and he would take him, not to his house merely, but to his heart. In that embrace the prodigal's misgivings melt- ed all aAvay. There was no question now about his reception. He had been already welcomed ; and so with a deeper feeling than he had known when he made the resolution to employ them, he repeated the words, " Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more icorthy to he called, thy son,'' but he did not add, " Make me as one of thy hired servants." That, he felt, would have been to insult the generous affection of his father, who had already taken him back into the old place of son ; so, gladly and grate- fully, he accepts the kindness, and goes forward with him to the dwelling. When they reached the house, the order was given by the father to the 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 ; 120 THE LOST FOUND. let US eat and be merrj ;" while, that all may linow the reason of this unwonted joy, the pro- clamation was made, " For this my son was dead, and is alive again : he was lost, and is found." Not always thus, however, are returning chil- dren received by earthly parents ; and before I pass to the spiritual meaning of this portion of the j^arable, permit me to point from it a moral for the guidance of those who are heads of fami- lies among us. We who are in that position have two opposite dangers to avoid. On the one hand, we have to watch against that laxity of discipline whichi permits children to do just as they please ; and, on the other, we have to keep from that stem and unrelenting severity which visits every fault with rigid punishment, and presents a cold, unfeeling aspect to the child. It is hard to say whicli of these two evils is the more pernicious ; but, in general, we are prone to fall into the for- mer when our children are very young ; and, into the latter when they grow older, and verge to- ward manhood and womanhood. Now it is espe- cially the extreme of sternness which is reproved by the conduct of the father here described. We ought to recognize the birth of individuahty in THE PRODIGAL SON. 121 I our cliildren ; and, as they advance in years, we Ionglit to feel that we are to rule them through the intellect and the affections, and not by the force of mere authority. There is a parental intoler- ance which is as harsh and overbearing, and to the full as disastrous, as any infringement of civil or religious liberty by a government can ever be. And, in our desire to rule as the family governors, we ought never to forget tlie kind of rule which we are to exercise. I willingly admit that, even in the case of grown-up sons and daughters, there may be offences committed which require that we should show displeasure ; but we should beware of so showing it, as to drive them from our homes at the very time when most they need to feel the influence of our love, and to be regulated by the force of our example. I have heard of a minister of the gospel turning one of his sons out of doors for nothing worse than such pranks as lads, in the exuberance of their spirits, are prone to indulge in. The mother went with him for a portion of his way, and talked and prayed with him as only a mother can ; and, in his case, the issue was that he rose to a position of honor, not only in the nation, but in the Church. Still, if it had been otherwise, and the youth had gone to ruin, would 122 THE LOST FOUND. not his father have been chargeable in some de- gree with the murder of his soul ? The skillful angler, when he hooks a noble fish, is never too j anxious to bring it to the shore. He gives it line\{ and lets it run awhile, until at length, weary with its splashing, it becomes an easy prey. So in fishing for men, and especially for our own chil- dren, we must not make the cord too tight, lest it break, and they go far from us ; but with a holy guile, and with a loving tenderness, while we still keep hold of them, we must give them line, only thereby in the end to bring them more securely to the Lord. So again, when a son or a daughter has gone astray, and comes back to us, we should act as this father did. We should not upbraid, or sneer, or ridicule, or condemn. We may be sure that there has been enough of bitterness in the conscience of the offender, before the mind was made up to come to us again. The heart and the home should be opened as before, and nothing should come from us that would painfully remind the prodigal of past iniquity. How deeply some men have sinned at once against their own better nature and against God, by adopting an opposite course! I have been told of a father coming into a house where, unknown to him, his THE PEODIGAL SON. 123 daughter was at the moment a guest ; and, though her heart was yearning for a kindly word from him, there was nothing but a cold, silent greeting accorded to her. Why ? because she had given her heart and her hand to a good man, whose only fault, even in her father's eyes, was that he was poor. What an idea that man must have of God, if this be his notion of fatherhood ! and what a dread that shrinking one must have of Jehovah, if her earthly father is to be to her a type of the Father in Heaven ! A few years ago it was stated in the English newspapers that a Bishop, who had died possessed of thousands, had deliberately declined to leave a portion to a daughter, simply on the ground that she had married, against his will, a poor clergyman of the very Church of which he was a dignitary ! Nor was he content with that ; but in his will, and with his own account in view, he actually vindi- cated his conduct on the score of justice and of duty. Alas for us, if God had thus inexorably cut us off from all hope of inheritance ! Since, then, such paltry grounds as these are, in some cases, sufficient to create implacable resentment in a parent's heart, we need not be surprised to find tbat frequently, when sin has been commit- 124 THE LOST FOUND. ted, tlie father's house is shut against the of- fender. " He shall never darken my door again ;" or, " I will have notldng more to do ivith her, she has made her own bed, and must lie upon it'' These are expressions, alas ! which are sometimes heard from those who have what they call " ill-doing " children. But do they ever think how much the knowledge that they are thus unrelenting does to drive the poor wanderer into more terrible ini- quity ? or how, perhaps, their cruel harshness may even keep the prodigal from turning to God ? — as he says, " If my father will not hearken to me, how can I hope that God will forgive me ?" Oh ! let us remember that " WE ARE SAVED BY HOPE," not by fear. You may bring your child back to rectitude by giving him ground to hope for something from your affec- tion ; you v/ill never 'reform him by making him afraid of you. The matron of a female educa- tional hospital in Edinburgh told me, recently, a most interesting history. One of her scholars, after she had left the hospital, fell into evil courses, and became openly abandoned ; hearing of her case, my friend tracked her from one den of infamy to another, braving dangers which, for a Christian lady, are more terrible than the dead- THE PRODIGAL SON. 125 liest charge is to a soldier. At length she found her ; and, after long dealing with her, in which she was aided by a devoted minister of Christ, and blessed, as she believes, by the Holy Spirit, she succeeded in taking her to her mother's house, in a quiet rural retreat. Now, just sup- pose, for a moment, that after all the exertions of these friends, the mother had said, " No, she shall not come here. I loill not have my household polluted hy her presence^ What would have been the ef- fect upon the girl ? Would it not have sent her back again to sin ? and would not she, from whom she had the greatest reason to expect af- fection, have been, in that case, the cause of her ultimate ruin ? As it was, however, the mother, like the father here, "kissed the past into for getful- ness,'' and, without upbraiding of any sort, took her to her home once more. Thus it should al- ways be ; for if we would hold our children back from sin, or bring them again from the evil ways into which they may have fallen, we must bind them by the spell, and draw them by the magnetism of love. Let us make home attract- ive by the sweet influences of affection ; so shall we best preserve our young people from going astray ; and, when they have fallen, let us be .'^ 126 THE LOST FOUND., sure that only tenderness and affection will ever lift them up again. / "Forget not thou hast often sinned, C, And sinful yet must be ; /' Deal gently with the erring one, ■ As thy God hath dealt with thee." / It is time, however, that we should look at the spiritual meaning of this portion of the parable ; and here the question presents itself, What are we to understand by the reception given by the father to the returning prodigal? The answer may be given in a single sentence, — It is the welcome given to the repentant sinner by God the Father. But while this is the true principle of interpretation, some things must be added at once to prevent misconception, and to bring out more vividly the truths which are intended to be symbolized by the incidents here recorded. And, in the first place, when we read of the prodigal being a great way off, and so are led to think of his return as a long and toilsome journey, we are not to suppose that conversion is neces- sarily a protracted process. The coming back, of course, in the parable must correspond to the departure into the far land ; and though frequently THE PRODIGAL SON. 127 there is a considerable time of anxiety and strug- gle between the moment of awakening and the time when the soul finds joy and peace in believ- ing, yet this dark middle-passage is by no means essential. Katlier it is the result either of faulty views as to the way of salvation, or of a want of faith in the truth as it is presented to the sinner. There was no such long interval between convic- tion and conversion in the case of those who were born again on the day of Pentecost, or in that of Saul of Tarsus, or in that of the Philippian jailer ; and I cannot but think that, unintentionally of course, much harm has been done in this matter by the records of some Christian biographies, and even by such an admirable allegory as " The Pilgrim's Progress." No doubt the representa- tions given are true to actual experience in many instances ; but all such experiences spring from an unwillingness on the part of individuals to submit themselves at once to the righteousness of God, and perhaps, also, from an imperfect understand- ing by them of the real nature of the gospel. We ought not, therefore, to imagine that such cases are normal instances, and that every conversion to be genuine must be in every respect like them. The distance at which the sinner stands from 128 THE LOST FOUND. God is spiritual, not material ; and wliensoever tlie soul gives itself up to Jeliovali to be saved, in His way, tlirougli Jesus Christ, that is the moment of conversion. It may be long, in many cases it has been long, after moral thoughtfulness and spiritual- anxiety have been produced, before the individual comes to this unreserved submis- sion. But it need not be long, and it should not be long. Nay, it would not be long if the gospel, in its freeness and fullness, were by the soul clearly understood and thoroughly believed. The way is prolonged by the fact that the sinner either does not know, or will not believe the glad tidings of salvation through the crucified Redeemer. On this point I cannot refrain from reproducing an anecdote which I heard one evening in conversation from the lips of Mr. Spurgeon. An earnest young evangelist on his way one morning from Granton to Edinburgh, overtook a Newhaven fishwife carrying her baS' ket to the market. Anxious to do some good, he said to her, " There you go with your burden on your back. Once I had a heavier load than that, but, thank God, I have got rid of it now." " Oh," she replied, " you mean the burden that Jn]\n Banyan speaks of; I know all about that ; THE PRODIGAL SON. 129 but I have got rid of mine many and many a year ago." " I am happy to hear of it," said the evangelist. " Yes," she answered ; " but do you know I don't think that man Evangelist was a right preacher of the gospel at all. When Christian asked him where he was to go, he said, Do you see yonder wicket-gate? He said he didn't, and it was no wonder. He asked again. Do you see yonder shining light ? and he said he did ; and then Evangelist dkected him to make for that. Now, what business had he to speak either about the shining light or the wicket- gate ? Couldn't he have pointed him at once to the Redeemer's cross ? Christian never did lose his burden till he saw that cross ; and he might have seen it sooner if Evangelist had known his business better. Much good he got, too, by making for the shining light ! Wh^^, be- fore h'e knew where he was, he was floundering in the Slough of Despond ; and if it had not been for the man Help, he would never have got out." " What !" said the evangelist to her, " were you never in the Slough of Despond ?" " Ay, many a time, many a time," was the reply ; " but let me tell you, young man, it's a liantel easier to get through that slough with your 130 THE LOST FOUND. burden off, than with your burden on 1" Now, though as a record of what often actually hap- pens, and of what really occurred in his own his- tory, the immortal allegorist has given us a truth- ful portraiture, the Christian fishwife was in the right ; for the moment a sinner rightly appre- hends and thoroughly believes the doctrine of the cross, he loses his sin- burden ; and this may be after no painfully protracted process of agony and inward conflict. In point of fact, awakening conversion, and peace may be all but simultaneous, and the soul may come to a full knowledge of its guilt almost at the same moment that it embraces the Saviour whom God has provided. Understand, therefore, it is not needed that you go through a long series of terrible experiences, called by some old divines "latv-worJc /' but you may, where you are and as you are, enter into peace by simplj^ accepting deliverance through the crucified Redeemer. Again, when w^e read that the father saw his son " a great way off, and had compassion on him, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him," we are not to imagine that God at such a time comes to the sinner in any special and peculiar manner other than that set before us in the THE PRODIGAL SON. 131 gospel. Admirably has one said here — " The coming out of the father to meet his son figur- atively exhibits the sending of the Son." "^ AH \ the way to the Cross of Calvary has God come, j running to meet sinners. What a long way that is, who can tell ? for who can measure the dis- tance from the throne of glory to the dust of death ? Tliat cross is the meeting-place be- tween the righteous God and the repentant pro- digal. In Christ God has come in infinite compassion, showing how He can be a just God and a Saviour ; and when we grasp that cross in simple faith, it is then that He embraces us and takes us home to his heart. " In Christ," the Father has come as far as He righteously can come to save sinners ; and when the sinner is by faith " in Christ " also, then is he received by God. Hence the action of the Father, as portrayed in this parable, is only a pictorial re- presentation of the truth Paul proclaims as the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not hnputing their trespasses unto them ; " and Von Gerlach, quoted by Stier in his commentary on this 132 THE LOST FOUND. concerning which he sajs, "Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did be- seech you by ns ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." In Him ; mark that. Till we are " in Him " God has not met us; but when we unite ourselves to Him by simple trust, then we, too, are "in Him," and the Father embraces ns, and falls up- on our necks and kisses us. But now, having made these needful qualifica- tions, let us seek to discover what is involved in the reception here described, the orders given to the servants, and the banquet subsequent thereto. The reception indicates loving and complete restoration to the position which has been for- feited by sin. The father uttered no taunting word ; but his whole procedure showed that he took back his son into his affection and into his place ui the family. Now, similarly, God " up- braideth not." When, among men, one goes against a father's or a friend's advice, and brings upon himself the evils which had been described as sure to follow his projected course, the tempta- tion is very strong — usually, indeed, too strong to u THE PRODIGAL SON. 133 be resisted — to say, " I told you so. You have deserved all that has come upon you. You have nobody to blame but yourself." But nothmg of this sort comes from God to the repenting sinner. TlifiLpa&t is past. God forgets as well as forgives. "We might, indeed, almost be afraid to use such a term regarding Him, but He has used it himself. He says, " I will not remember thy sins ;" nay, as if to impress vividly on our minds that nothing of upbraiding will ever come from Him to us, the prophet says (Micah vii. 19), " Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea ;" and Heze- kiah, realizing this truth from the human side, says to Jehovah (Isaiah xxxviii. 17), " Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." Wondrous truth this, that when God receives us. He makes no reference to the past, nor in any way whatever j)ainfully reminds us of our ingratitude and dis- obedience. Truly, when we think of it, we may say with David, in the first joy of his own fresh forgiveness, " Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." But though God does not upbraid the returning sinner with his guilt, we must not suppose that 134 THE LOST FOUND. the penitent himself does not feel it keenly. Nay, rather, the loving-kindness of his Father only makes him all the more sensible of the heinons- ness of his iniquity. Observe, it was after the embrace of the father, not before it, that the pro- digal sobbed out his confession. He did not say within himself, " It is all right. He has taken me back wdthout a word, and there is now no need for me to say a syllable about my folly ; so I will not use the w^ords which I had resolved to em- ploy." No ; for this new and unexpected love { made him feel more intensely than ever what a fool he had been, and how miserably he had mis- understood his father. Hence, though he had been sincere when first he thought of making a confes- sion, he makes it now with a depth and a fervor to which his heart had been heretofore a stranger. Now, it is quite similar with the penitent. At no time does he feel the heinousness of his sin so much, as when he is rejoicing in God's forgiving love. This is indeed the glory of the gospel, that, though it proclaims pardon, it does so in such a way that, in the very act of believing the proclamation and accejDting the forgiveness, the sinner sees and hates his iniquity as he never did before. Nor need this astonish us ; for the gos- THE PKODIGAL SON. 135 pel shows US more thorouglilj the heart of that Father whom we have shghted ; and while faith in it may keep us, yea, must keep us, from desir- ing to be like " one of his hired servants," it wdll also lead us all the more earnestly to sob out the confession, " Father, I have sinned against hea- ven, and in thy sight, and am no more w^orthy to be called thy son." The orders given to the servants, " to put the best robe " on the prodigal, and " to put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet," were designed to give to the returned one the means of occupying the position and performing the duties to w^hich he had been restored. The gift of the robe reminds us of the words of Zechariah regarding the vision of Jo- shua, in the third chapter of his prophecies : "Noio Joshua toas clothed icith filthy garments, and stood hefore the angel. And he ansivered and spake unto those that stood hefore him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I tvill clothe thee tvith change of raiment. And I said. Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him ivith garinents. And the angel of tJie Lord stood 136 THE LOST FOUND. %."* The ring, again, recalls to our remem- brance the honor done to Joseph by Pharaoh, when the king " took off Ms ring from his hand and put it tqoon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestments of fine linen, and put a chain of gold about his neck /"t while the shoes were designed to be a badge of sonship, for the slave was not permitted to have sandalled feet. Every- thing here is thus in keeping with the customs of Oriental life ; but in giving a spiritual inter- pretation, it is difficult to say Avhether we should be content with regarding the particulars in the I ^^^, aggregate as a description of the fullness of the restoration to sonship, to which I have already adverted, or whether we should take each sepa- rately, as denoting some individual blessing of the gospel. No doubt the former is the correct prin- ciple of expression ; yet, it requires an effort to resist the temptation to see in the " best robe " the emblem of the Redeemer's righteousness, clothed in which the believer becomes " comely with His comeliness put upon him ; " in " the ring, " the token of assurance, or, perhaps, of that " sealing of the Spirit until the day of * Zechariah, iii. 3-5. t Genesis xli. 42. THE PRODIGAL SON. 137 redemption," of wliicli Paul speaks ; and in the " shoes," that " preparation " or readiness " of the gospel of peace," which is mentioned by the apostle in his enumeration of the various pieces of the Christian armor, and by which the child of God is fitted for " walking up and down in His name," and, "running in the way of His commandments." But without unduly pressing these analogies, it is more satisfactory to rest in the general truth intended to be illustrated, which undo.ubtedly is, that though his former por- tion had been sinfully squandered, the prodigal was restored, not only to his father's love, but also to his place in the family ; and this just means that the believing sinner is taken back into God's favor, and replaced in the position which he would have occupied if he had never fallen. But what is the spiritual meaning of the feast? Some look upon the fatted calf as the emblem of the sacrifice of Christ ; others view it as symbolizing the Lord's Supper. But Trench, I think, has given the true interpretation of the banquet, when he takes it to allude to " the fes- tal joy and rejoicing which is in heaven at the sinner's return, and no less in the Church on 138 THE LOST FOUND. earth, and in his own heart also ;" while Arnot puts it perhaps more simply, if also more anti- thetically, thus : " The feast indicates the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God." * Thus we have here again a point of union between this parable and the two preceding. The one great purpose of them all was, to illustrate the fact that " there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth ;" but the peculiarity here is not that the joy is greater over the recovery of that which had been lost, than over those who had never gone astray, nor that the gladness is par- ticipated in by unfallen beings, but rather in this, that the deligld is shared by the recovered one him- self ; and, in accordance with the plan which we have pursued of restricting ourselves to that which is distinctive in each of these stories, we shall confine our attention to this alone. The feast was made in honor of the prodigal. It was given specially and peculiarly to him. Others, of course, partook of it, and, more particularly, his father enjoyed the festival ; but what most of * "The Parables of our Lord," by tbe Bev. Williau Arnot, p. 440. THE PRODIGAL SON. 139 / all comes out here is, tliat the lost son had a joy- ous feast given to him on his welcome home. The joy of God and of the angels has been al- ready considered. Here we have the gladness of the converted soul itself ; and if we keep this prominently before our minds, we shall not fall into the common mistake of supposing that the scene of this banquet is confined to heaven. Doubtless, so far as God and the angels are concerned, we must so regard it ; but in respect to the lost but now restored son, we must think of it as on earth and in his own soul. The new life begins in feast. The child of God has " joy " as well as " peace in believing." "While God rejoices over him, he rejoices in God ; and in the hour of conversion this gladness is pecu- liarly intense ; so much so, indeed, that it may well be described as a special era of high festi- val. When Philip preached in the Samaritan city, and multitudes were turned unto the Lord under his ministrations, we read that " there was great joy in that city ;" and when the Ethiopian eunuch had found the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, we are told that " he went on his way rejoicing." So it ever is. The moment in which salvation is embraced is one of gladness, and 140 THE LOST FOUND. the Christian life may be described as a per- petual feast. Not always, indeed, is this joy pre- sent in the same degree, nor do all possess it in the same measure, for differences of tempera- ment and constitution manifest themselves in this as in other things ; but it is always to some ex- tent the portion of the belierer on earth, and in heaven it shall be pure and perfect and peren- nial. Many illustrative cases might be gleaned from Christian biography in proof of the exist- ence and intensity of this spiritual joy in the convert's heart ; but we cannot now enter upon so wide a field. Suffice it to say, that the holi- est, most elevating, and most lasting gladness which the soul can feel, is that which springs from the contemplation of God's mercy, revealed to it and received by it through the cross of Christ. Peter used not the words of wild fa- naticism, but the language of sober truth, when he said, " In tuhom, though noiu tve see him noff yet believing, ice rejoice with joy unspeakable, and fiM of glory ; and some among us can indorse the words of Mrs. Isabella Graham, when, re- ferring to her own conversion, she says : " 3Iy views then ivere dark compared loith what they are now ; hut this I remember, that, at the tiine, I felt THE PRODIGAL SON. 141 heart-satisfy iiig trust in the mercy of God through Christ, and for a time rejoiced luith joy scarcely supportable, singing almost continually the hundred and third Fsalm.''^ Such, mj brethren, is the banquet which God spreads for the returning sinner ; »but we may not forget that He makes both the Church on earth and the Church in heaven sharers with Him in His joy. They all alike make merry — I like the homely word — over a sinner's conversion ; and though, on the principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive, the highest dehght is that of God, yet we must not forget the gladness of the penitent himself. Sinner, do you want to be happy ? Then return to God. Away from Him you must ever be in want, hungering after the world's husks, which yet cannot be obtained; but from Him you will receive the truest joy —the joy of forgiveness, the joy of accept- ance, the joy of assurance, the joy of holiness, and, finally, as the cKmax and consummation of them all, the joy of heaven. They speak falsely who allege that the gospel is a melan- * Life of Mrs. Isabella Graliam, published by the American Tidct Society, p. 150. 142 THE LOST FOUND. choly thing, and an enemy to mirth. " True piety is cheerful as the day," and the Chris- tian life should be continous joy. In the old dispensation there were three great annual festivals at which the sons of Abraham went up to Jerusalem — that of the passorer, which commemorated and renewed their gladness over their deliverance from the Egyp- tian house of bondage.; that of the first fruits when the earliest ripe sheaves gave joyous fore- token of the coming harvest ; and that of Ta- bernacles, when, for a season their tent-life was renewed, and they blessed God for their settled enjoyment of the promised land. But what was temporary and occasional in the form^er economy, is permanent under the gospel, and the gladness of all these three festivals is united in the Christian life. The Pascal joy of deliver- ance — the Pentecostal gladness of first fruits in the possession of the earnest of the Spirit — and the Tabernacle-rejoicing in the contemplation from out the frail booth of the flesh of " the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God " — these all combine to make the expe- rience of the believer a continuous feast, which is not the less real because it is internal and spir- THE PRODICtAI^ SON. 143 itual. Three feasts in one ! and the festival-time a Ufe-time ! Is there nothing in all this to al- lure us ? " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast " our life-time through, " not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sin- cerity and truth." "^ * 1 Corinthiaiis, t., 7, 8. THE PRODIGAL SON. IV. THE ELDER BROTHER. " Now his elder son was in the field ; and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music 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 entreated 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 sou 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 ahve again ; and was lost, and is found." Luke zy., 25-32. THE PRODIGAL SON. IV. THE ELDER BROTHER. In tlie general household joj over the prodigal's return, there was one who refused to share. The elder son, who now for the first time comes into prominence, and who seems to have had very large ideas of his own importance, was absent in the field at the moment of his brother's re-appearance, and only became aware that something unwonted had occurred when, as he drew near, he heard the sound of music and dancing. Instead, however, of gomg trustfully forward into the house, in the full confidence that everything over which his father presided must be right and proper, he showed his mean and suspicious disposition by 14:8 THE LOST FOUND. calling one of the servants, and asking of him what " these things meant." Promptly and plainly, the domestic made reply, " Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed for him the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound." The servant's words imply that, in his view, it was the most natural thing in the world that such a festival should be held on such an occasion ; but the information which he conveyed was gall and wormwood to the elder brother's soul. " What ! such a fuss made over the return of a useless good-for-nothing ! Never was any like rejoicing made on my account. Is this, then, the reward of all my steadiness and industry ? Let them keep feast who please, but I will take no place at the board." And so, in the sulks, because more seemed to be made of his brother than of himself, he refused to enter the house. But his father could not think of allowing him to remain in this mood, without at least making an effort to induce him to change his purpose. The same love that prompted him, when he saw his younger son returning, to go forth to meet him, disposed him now, when he saw his elder son departing, to go out and entreat him to come in. But he was met in an unfilial and almost insulting man- THE PKODIGAL SON. 149 uer. *' Lo, these many years do I serve thee " — (what ! a son, and yet talking of service in this mercantile fashion ! — where has thy fihal affection gone ? Has it been for the reward, then, after all, and not for love, that thou hast staid at home ?) — " neither transgi'essed I at any time thy com- mandment " — (excellent 3^oung man 1 truly thou hast a good report of thyself. A very model son ! A perfect specimen of obedience to the Fifth Commandment ! and yet, methinks, had thy son- ship been as faultless as thou sayest, it would have been also somewhat unconscious of its merit. I like not this dwelling on thy pre-eminence. There is more true sonship in thy brother's, " I have sinned," than in thy self-laudation)— " and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends "—(Didst thou ever ask it ? or was there ever any great occasion in thy Hfe when such a thing would have been appropriate ? Besides, the fatted calf was killed, not to give a banquet to thy brother's friends, but to express thy father's own delight. Why wilt thou think thyself slighted, when no offence was intended toward thee ?)— " But as soon as this thy son was come "—(Thy son ! Is he not then thy brother also? or dost thou repudiate the relationship? 150 THE LOST FOUND. "What an insult to tliy father is this sneering phrase !) — " who hath devoured thy living with harlots " — (Ah ! how envy exaggerates the faults of those whose good it grudges, and imputes to them w^ickednesses of its own imagining ! The prodigal had not devoured all the father's living ; there was a good fat portion yet for the elder son ; and as to his wasting his substance on harlots, that is an unsupported assertion on the part of his brother. It may have been true. But there is no evidence- that it was. Envy, however, takes it quite for granted. Your very precise and proper people, who pride themselves most upon never having transgressed any commandment, have al- ways most to say about other people's faults, and they take good care to make them blacker by their speech.) "We have thus parenthetically exposed the un- generous insinuations and unfilial disposition of this youth's complaint, in order that we may bring out before you more clearly the mag- nanimity of his father, who takes no notice of the sneering innuendoes which were designed to be so stinging, but only calmly replies, " Son, thou, art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." As if he had said, "Why speak of THE PRODIGAL SON. 151 making merry with thy friends, when thou hast always had a feast in me ; and as for thy bro- ther's waste, say no more of that ; thou art not the poorer on that account, for all that I have is thine." But this is all the length the fa- ther wiU go ; he will not acknowledge that he had in any way overlooked the one son, in his joy over the return of the other; nor will he admit that he had done anything strange or im- proper in making such a festival. On the con- trary, he defends his procedure, and repeats his gladness, at one and the same time, saying, " It was meet," ^.e., it was fitting;— it was in every respect in harmony with the dictates of nature and rehgion — it was in the highest degree appropriate,—" that we should make merry and be glad ; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is found." Observe the delicate re^^roof conveyed in the first word, "son," and in that other expres- sion, "thy brother." On the former occasion he said, " This my son was dead, and is alive again ; but now it is " thy brother." It was as if he had said, " I have observed the spirit of a servant in all that thou hast said, but I will still call thee * son ;' and though thou 152 THE LOST FOUND. cynically didst refuse to call the returned wan- derer ' thy brother; I will not let thee act so utterly unworthily. Thou wilt think better of it yet. Somewhere in thee, surely, there is a bro- ther's heart ; and if that be touched, thou wilt at once admit the 'meetness' of our mirth." Thus far I have had regard only to the literal aspect of the story, and I cannot pass from that, without pausing a moment or two longer to point out two things which come out here, which may be wholesome to us all. Observe how self-importance makes a man moody and unhappy. He who is always think- ing of his own excellences, renders himself there- by unfit to enjoy the good of others, and is prone to imagine that every token of affection given to another is an insult offered to himself. Hence he is touchy, sensitive, irritable and envious. He takes offence where none is meant, and even wdien those around him are not thinking of him at all, he interprets their conduct as if it were studiously discourteous, and goes through the world smarting from wounds which have sprung, not so much from the neglect of others, as from his own overweening self-conceit. There is no surer way to make ourselves miserable THE PRODIGAL SON. 153 than to tliink of ourselves more liiglilj than we ought to think. It isolates us from all about us. It cuts us off alike from human sympathy and divine assistance. It makes us very Ish- maels, with our hands against every man, and every man's hands apparently against us. It gives a jaundiced interpretation to the behavior of those who, so far from meaning to do evil to us, have our best interests at heart, and love us with self-sacrificing affection. The man who has a wound about him, no matter where it may be, feels it to be always in his way. Let him do what he will, or go where he may, he cannot move himself but he is conscious of its pain. In like manner, he who has this feeling of self-importance is continually smarting. Some- body has always been slighting him. He is constantly complaining of having been insulted, and when honor is given to another, he feels nothing but that he has been overlooked. Thus he shuts himself out from every festival, and mopes most of all when others are merry. May God deliver us from this idolatry of self, on whose altar all true nobleness and real happiness are completely immolated ! Notice, again, how repulsive to others this self 154 THE LOST FOUND. important spirit is. You cannot take to tliis elder brother. Even in his wanderings and sins, the younger was more lovable than he, his indus- try and sobriety notwithstanding. So it is ever with the sfelfish one. He is a non-conductor in society. The electricity of love never passes through him ; and in the end, all loving hearts are driven from him. Thus he is not only the most unhappy, but also the most useless of men. The "sdjist^' is left, in righteous retribu- tion, to that most miserable of all companions, himself. He has no magnetism about him. He can gain no entrance into the hearts of others. He stands on the outside of every holy enterprise, and is at the very antipodes of him who said, *' Neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry that I have received of the Lord." Thus, alike to do good and to be happy, we inust forget self; we must merge ourselves in the cause which we are seeking to advance ; we must be, as one has .phrased it, " emptied and lost and swallowed up in Christ." But passing now to the interpretation of the parable, the question arises, " Who is this elder brother?" Various answers have been given. aid, by the publishers, on receipt of the price SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., 654 r>ROAi)WAY, New York. Lange' s Comme ntary. NOW READY: ANOTHER OLD TESTAMENT VOLUME. Translated and Edited by Rev. Drs. CONANT and FORSYTH, and Revs. C. A. BRIGGS ajid G. McCURDY. One vol. royal 8vo, 800 pages, cloth $5.00 The Vohinies J>re7iiotisly Puhlislied are : OLD TESTAMENT.— I. GENESIS. II. JOSHUA, JUDGES, AND RUTH. III. FIRST AND SECOND KINGS. IV, PROVERBS, SONG OF SOLOMON, ECCLESIASTES. V. JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATION. NEW TESTAMENT.— I. MATTHEW. II. MARK AND LUKE. III. JOHN. IV. ACTS. V. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. VI. CORINTHIANS. VII. GALATIANS, EPHESIANS PHILIPPIANS, COLOSSIANS. VIII. THESSALONIANS, TIMO- THY, TITUS, PHILEMON, AND HEBREWS. IX. THE EPIS- TLES GENERAL OF JAMES, PETER, JOHN AND JUDE. Each one vol. 8vo. 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