The Young Prodigal.
THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.
How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially of his fall and his recovery.
The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows, might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from notorious spendthrifts and open profligates, that wicked waste scatters the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in dissipation the anguish of remorse.
It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble, wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan who comes to him as an angel of light.