ATTEN. Well, but it seems he did live to come out of his time, but what did he then?
WISE. Why, he went home to his father, and he, like a loving and tender-hearted father, received him into his house.
ATTEN. And how did he carry it there?
WISE. Why, the reason why he went home, was, for money to set up for himself; he stayed but a little at home, but that little while that he did stay, he refrained himself as well as he could, and did not so much discover himself to be base, for fear his father should take distaste, and so should refuse, or for a while forbear to give him money. Yet even then he would have his times, and companions, and the fill of his lusts with them, but he used to blind all with this, he was glad to see his old acquaintance, and they as glad to see him, and he could not in civility but accommodate them with a bottle or two of wine, or a dozen or two of drink.
CHAPTER V.
[BADMAN IN BUSINESS, THE TRICKS OF A WICKED TRADESMAN.]
ATTEN. And did the old man give him money to set up with?
WISE. Yes, above two hundred pounds.
ATTEN. Therein, I think, the old man was out. Had I been his father, I would have held him a little at staves-end, till I had had far better proof of his manners to be good; for I perceive that his father did know what a naughty boy he had been, both by what he used to do at home, and because he changed a good master for a bad, &c. He should not therefore have given him money so soon. What if he had pinched a little, and gone to journey-work for a time, that he might have known what a penny was, by his earning of it? Then, in all probability, he had known better how to have spent it: yea, and by that time perhaps, have better considered with himself, how to have lived in the world. Ay, and who knows but he might have come to himself with the prodigal, and have asked God and his father forgiveness for the villainies that he had committed against them.
WISE. If his father could also have blessed this manner of dealing to him, and have made it effectual for the ends that you have propounded, then I should have thought as you. But alas, alas, you talk as if you never knew, or had at this present forgot what the bowels and compassions of a father are. Why, did you not serve your own son so? But it is evident enough that we are better at giving good counsel to others, than we are at taking good counsel ourselves. But mine honest neighbour, suppose that Mr. Badman's father had done as you say, and by so doing had driven his son to ill courses, what had he bettered either himself or his son in so doing?