A Righteous Father
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 son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make meriy and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” — Luke xv. 28-32.
Sketched by the hand of a Divine Artist, we have here a picture of fatherhood inimitable and unapproachable, and which inevitably sends up our thoughts to the Divine Original from which it is outlined. Fain would we dwell on it; but before passing away we merely notice
1. The father’s love, — Of a kindred love the apostle declares that its breadth, and length, and depth, and height pass knowledge; and a great deep must have been that affection which the sharp wind of ingratitude failed to freeze, which a long course of waywardness could not exhaust, and of which, on the prodigal’s return, the fountains broke up, and, overflowing in a grand final burst of compassion, covered mountains of provocation, leaving all things new at their reflux in the mind of the pardoned penitent.
2. His wisdom. — Our fondness sometimes grows foolish, and in concessions and refusals alike our weakness is shown. When the younger son demanded his portion of goods, though deeply wounded the father did not withstand. His home should not be a prison, and 18o A RIGHTEOUS FATHER.
where the highest considerations and holiest influences had lost their power, he would not resort to coercion. He foresaw the result, but as this was a folly which experience alone could cure, he allowed the truant to depart and find out for himself how hard is the way of transgressors. Nor did he shorten the trial. If, as is not unlikely, he knew of the famine in the far country, he took no steps to interpose betwixt the misguided youth and a severe but salutary discipline; till, thoroughly filled with the fruits of his own devices, he felt and owned the bitter evil of his sin.
3. His dignity, — In all the father’s sayings, as well as in his silence, come out the tokens of a lofty mind. When the younger son demands his portion, the deed which wisdom dictates is performed with regal grandeur; no remonstrance, no unavailing entreaties, no attempt at compromise, nothing kept back in the way of deduction; and when he returns, a ragged and penniless outcast, there is no recalling of the past, no stipulation as to the future, but a forgiveness frank and free, a kingly munificence dissolving in fatherly tenderness, and from an ingenuous spirit the surest to draw back filial devotion. With like elevation he meets a rude remonstrance. In the coarseness of rage the elder son did not even address him as “father,” and only spoke of his brother as “this thy son;” but with high-born grace and the kindly tact of a goodness safe in its own supremacy, the father vindicates himself, and puts to shame the angry raller.
“Son “— for it is thus he retorts the insult which would not call him” father “— “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we [you and I and all of us] should make merry and be glad; [and if any should be merrier than another it is thou] for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and he was lost, and is found.”
4. His la7^ge-heartedness. — Not only was he a generous householder, where the hired servants had bread enough and to spare; but he could not be happy himself without giving others a share. “To the servants he had never told his grief; but now the prodigal is come back, and his heart is bursting with joy, he tells them of it. He cannot conceal it, he does not seek to conceal it. He says. Let us eat and be merry — I am so happy myself, I wish all others to be happy. Banish all care; drop your toils; let the shepherd come from the hill, the ploughman from the furrow, the herd from the pastures, the meanest servant come; and all wearing smiles, and joining in the song, hold holiday with my heart.”“”’
5. His equity, — His elder son thought him unfair. “Here have I been toiling on these weary years, improving the estate and never causing thee a moment’s anxiety: yet thou hast never given me so much as a kid with which to entertain my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” Angry and out-
* Dr. Guthrie. spoken, this splenetic effusion betrayed a wretched spirit. Passing for a son, he had all along been actuated by feelings which many a hireling would blush to avow; and, “never receiving wages, he had certainly never yet enjoyed the only true reward in his heart.”* After a speech so petulant and saucy, the father might have turned away in displeasure and left him to his wrathful musings; but in order to bring him to his right mind, in the tone most fitted to conquer and conciliate, he sets before the murmurer considerations which had escaped his evil eye. The question of work and wages was settled by that one word “Son,” and is disposed of more completely still in the noble utterance, “All that I have is thine.” Betwixt a father and a son there can be no separate Interests. If desirous to entertain thy friends, there was not on all the estate kid or fatted calf which thou couldst not any day command. But there are higher equities than work and wages. Even as a labourer thou hast received thine hire; but when all accounts are settled we still owe love to one another: our debt to the highest charities it needs a lifetime to discharge. It is “meet” that we should forgive faults and injuries. It is meet that we should compassionate the wretched and receive the penitent. It is meet that we should fulfil the claims of affection, be it parental or fraternal; and when our hearts are filled with gladness it is meet that we should express our joy, and let our friends and neighbours share * Van Oosterzee On Zuke, vol. ii. p. 68.
it. It is meet that you and I should on a day like this make merry.
Let us hope that the entreaty was not in vain, and that, bringing to his right mind the elder son, this happy night closed over a completed family. For, as it now turns out, both sons had been lost. The one had run away, but the other was a truant in spirit though he tarried at home. And to give heart and soul to a loveless nature — to give loyalty and devotion to the calculating mercenary — to create the filial spirit where there was nothing but the name before, needs grace as mighty as that which heals backslidings and recals the wanderer, and sets among the princes the once abject and degraded prodigal.
A piece of gold may be melted, and it may be moulded into almost any shape. It may be rolled out in bars, drawn into wire, minted into money. It may be twisted into the finest filigree, or beaten into leaflets, compared with which the flimsiest fabric of the loom or paper-frame seems coarse. But if you are so fortunate as to find a goodly pearl, you will not apply pincers or hammer, nor will you put it in the crucible. You will do wisely to preserve its original form unaltered, its native lustre unimpaired.
Some texts are golden. In the arguments of the Epistles and in the devotional outpourings of the Psalms, as well as in the historical incidents of either Testament, those who search the Scriptures will find great truths imbedded; and, sectile, ductile, malleable, we feel that it is no misuse if they are projected into propositions, divided into heads and particulars, drawn out into manifold applications, or even attenuated into such thin foil as is used in the manufacture of modern theological essays. A good deal may be done with a few grains of gold; and in this field, faithful and persevering search is sure to be rewarded with hoards or solid ingots.
There are other passages, however, which we dare not thus handle. We may repeat them, and revolve them, and, like gems, may hold them up in different lights, or try them in various settings; but such a saying as “God is love,” and such an incident as our Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem, we feel as if no scholastic tool should ever touch them. What better can the preacher do than exhibit them in their divine and unapproachable glory to the reverential contemplation of his hearers, peradventure trying a few of those expedients which are open to us in the way of foil and cross-light and contrast?
Such a feeling has kept us hovering timidly over this “pearl of parables.”’’^ Unable to pass away from it, we
* An expression of Stier, quoted by Van Oosterzee, Alford, and nearly all subsequent annotators. “For the beautiful, the pathetic, the instructive,” says Dr. Adam Clarke, “the history of Joseph in the Old Testament, and the parable of the prodigal son in the New, have no parallels either in sacred or profane history.” Even the cold rationalistic temperament of Grotius is thawed into a fervid admiration. “Inter omnes Christi parabolas haec sane eximia, plena affectumm, et pulhave failed to expound it. We have thrown out a few thoughts which its contemplation suggested, and noted a few analogous incidents gleaned from the records of a kindred experience. But the fair flower in your garden you do not cut down and dissect; you rather return and dwell on its loveliness day after day. And when people speak of throwing light on such a passage, it almost seems a preposterous inversion. Itself a light in a dark place, as there it stands and from the lattice of the Father’s house shines toward our far country, its friendly radiance has cheered and guided to the threshold many a benighted wanderer. It needs no exposition. It only needs the softened heart, the wistful gaze, the single eye. These may He graciously bestow who is the Spirit of Truth and Tenderness!
No doubt, from time to time as we proceeded, parallel instances have recurred to the mind of many a reader. Besides names already quoted, some would think of John Newton and General Burn. To memories familiar with early Christian records would recur the story of the youth become a renegade and robber, so remarkably reclaimed
cherrimis picta coloribus.” As has been well said by a living compatriot of the great Hollander, “Nowhere is that divine compassion which anticipates and outruns the sinner set forth in a way more tender and human — I might say, in a way more sincere and affectionate — than in this beautiful parable, which gives us deep insight into both the loving heart of the Divine Father and the sinful heart of man (Gods liefderijkvaderhart en het zondaarshart van den mensch).” Cohen-Stuart: De Verloren Zoon, Utrecht, p. 7.
by the apostle John; and what are Augustine’s Confessions but a long and yet intense expansion of the Prodigal’s prayer? In the Pitcairn Islanders we have the departure and return of a prodigal ship’s company; and the annals of reformations and religious revivals remind us of the Father s house forsaken and sought again by prodigal nations. A few individual examples may form an appropriate conclusion. They may comfort those who are mourning over a prodigal not yet returned. They illustrate the providence of God and the way of His Spirit. They are an encouragement to prayer, and on the side of parents and others they should be an incentive to personal exemplariness as long as the family circle continues unbroken.
During the late American war, at one of the Saturday evening meetings in Camp Distribution said a soldier to his comrades, “My friends, I left home an infidel, but I left a praying wife. A week ago I received a letter from her, in which she expressed anxiety for the welfare of my soul, and desired to know if I still held to my old views. I wrote an answer to the letter, and in bitter words defended my old position. As I was about to seal the letter, it seemed to me I could not send it. I wrote another, softened down considerably from the first, but when that was done I could not send it. I commenced another, but such was the power of the Spirit upon my heart, that I fell upon my knees and begged for forgiveness before God. I could not finish the letter until I could say to my dear wife that Christ had forgiven my sins. I have been permitted to write to her that I am to-night rejoicing in her Saviour. I feel that I am now prepared for the battle-field, and if ever I am permitted to return home, I trust I shall go back prepared for that, a better man than when I came into the army.”’’^ We hope the praying wife and the converted husband were soon allowed to meet; but sometimes these prayers are not answered till the supplicant has reached the land of praise. When Hedley Vicars was in Canada there was a young man in his Bible-class who sometimes felt a good deal touched by the earnest words of that fine Christian hero; but although almost persuaded, like most of his comrades he continued frolicsome, light-hearted, and godless. They were ordered to the Crimea, and one dark night in the trenches the Russians made a sortie, and In repelling it Vicars fell with a rifle-ball through his heart. A bullet pierced through the heart of the captain, and at the same instant a sword went through the soul of the young soldier. The captain, he felt, has gone to heaven; but where shall I go if there be a like messenger for me? The words which his fallen chief had spoken whilst yet with them were now called to remembrance, and ended in the entire revolution of his feelings and character. — It was from the lips of the Crimean soldier himself that we heard the tale, and he had then become a diligent and faithful Christian minister. * Fourth Annual Report of the United States Christian Commission p. 77.
The far country is wide, and to those who try to follow the prodigal its recesses are intricate, its fastnesses very inaccessible. But although the remonstrances of a father, the tears of a sister, the silent beseechings of a broken-hearted wife, may never overtake the wanderer; although, shut up in the iron fortress of his own passion or self-pleasing, he may defy them all, and throw them off as the adamant sheds the hail-shower, there is One who compasses the path of the prodigal, and from whose presence it is idle to flee. We told how a prodigal’s progress was arrested in the case of George Cowie of Huntly. On the authority of his biographer, we venture to relate an incident still more striking in the career of the illustrious American missionary, Adoniram Judson. He was a minister’s son, and, very able and very ambitious, he was early sent to college. In the class above
was a young man of the name of E, brilliant, witty,
and popular, but a determined deist. Between him and the minister’s son there sprang up a close intimacy, which ended in the latter gradually renouncing all his early beliefs, and becoming as great a sceptic as his friend. He was only twenty years of age, and you may be sure it was a terrible distress and consternation which filled the home circle, when, during the recess, he announced that he was no longer a believer in Christianity. More than a match for his father’s arguments, he steeled himself against all softer influences, and with his mind made up to enjoy life and see the world, he first joined a company of players at
New York, and then set out on a solitary tour. One night he stopped at a country inn. Lighting him to his room, the landlord mentioned that he had been obliged to place him next door to a young man who was exceedingly ill, in all probability dying, but he hoped that it would occasion him no uneasiness. Judson assured him that, beyond pity for the poor sick man, he should have no feeling whatever. Still the night proved a restless one. Sounds came from the sick chamber — sometimes the movements of the watchers, sometimes the groans of the sufferer — and the young traveller could not sleep. So close at hand, with but a thin partition between us, he thought, there is an immortal spirit about to pass into eternity, and is he prepared? And then he thought,” For shame of my shallow philosophy! What would
E, so intellectual and clear-headed, think of this
boyish weakness?” And then he tried to sleep, but still the picture of the dying man rose up to his imagination. He was a ‘’young man,” and the young student felt compelled to place himself on his neighbour’s dying bed, and he could not help fancying what, in such circumstances, would be his thoughts. But the morning dawned, and in the welcome daylight his “superstitious illusions” fled away. When he came down stairs he inquired of the landlord how his fellow-lodger had passed the night. ‘’ He is dead,” was the answer. “Dead!” “Yes; he is gone, poor fellow! The doctor said he would probably not survive the night.” “Do you know who he was?”
“Oh, yes; it was a young man from Providence College
—a very fine fellow; his name was E.” Judson
was completely stunned. Hours passed before he could quit the house; but when he did resume his journey, the words “Dead! lost! lost!^’ were continually ringing in his ears. There was no need for argument. God had spoken, and from the presence of the living God the chimeras of unbelief and the pleasures of sin alike fled away. The religion of the Bible he knew to be true; and turning his horse’s head towards Plymouth, he rode slowly homewards, his plans of enjoyment all shattered, and ready to commence that rough and uninviting path which, through the death-prison at Ava and its rehearsal of martyrdom, conducted to the grave at Maulmain.’”*
Our last example we take from the proceedings of a Society which has rescued many a wandering youth, and prevented many more from becoming prodigals. The class which the young foreigner attended was conducted by a dear friend of our own, and it was thus that at a meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association the circumstances were not long ago narrated: —” Nine years ago a young Frenchman presented himself for relief, requesting medicine and assistance. He was wretchedly poor, without food, almost without clothes, a deserter from the French army, and in consequence unable to revisit his native country; and even here, he went in terror that by some means he might be arrested, and made to suffer * See Wayland’s Life of Judson vol. i. p. 12.
for his fault. The medicine for which he asked the chemist gave him, and for relief he was directed to the Young Men’s Christian Association. He came on Easter Sunday 1855, found here the welcome with which you are always ready to greet a stranger who comes to throw himself upon your sympathy. He was placed under the care of a Christian gentleman, and under his guidance and teaching he learned the great truths of Christianity, and resolved to devote himself to the service of God. He continued for some time to attend your meetings, which were the source of much benefit to him; but in his altered state of mind he considered it was his first duty to make what reparation he could for the fault of which he had been guilty in deserting his regiment. He returned to France, presented himself to the proper officers, and surrendered himself as a deserter. On his trial much surprise was expressed at his voluntary surrender of himself, and the president specially interrogated him on this point. He replied: ‘When I ran away from France I was in the darkness of nature, and under the power of sin; now I have learned the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and am His servant. It is by the teaching of His Word that I come back to my duty, and submit myself to you for the punishment I have deserved.’ Kind friends took an interest in his welfare, and tried to procure a mitigation of his punishment. They were successful. Twelve years’ punishment was the ordinary penalty for his offence; this was reduced to four, and the severity of the imprisonment greatly mitigated. After undergoing it for a year and nine months, he was allowed to return to duty in the army. Here he was employed as a sort of regimental clerk for about two years, and then finally granted a discharge. Released from all obligation, he went to Geneva to study for the ministry. When his studies were completed, he laboured for some time in the south of France as an evangelist, and then was appointed to the charge of the French Independent Church at Guernsey. He now stands before you to acknowledge that this happy change of position, and far happier change of mind, he owes to the kindly influence of the Young Men’s Christian Association. The starving French deserter who sang in the streets of London for a morsel of bread, is the Pastor M, who now speaks to you.”