" If it had not been for that sentence about going home," said Mr. Spurgeon, "I might have had some doubts concerning her conversion ; but when a fallen girl goes home to her father and mother it is a sure case." ^
1 Christina G. Rossetti, Poems, 251.
* Mrs. Spurgeon, Life of C. H. Spurgeon, iv. 32.
298 THE RETURN TO THE FATHER
If One of the saddest letters in all literature is a letter written by our own poet, David Gray. David Gray was born eight miles from Glasgow ; he went to the Free Church Normal in that city. His honest father would have made a preacher of him, but God fore- stalled that by making him a poet. Well, nothing would satisfy David but he must go to London. He suffered much there and fell into consumption. And this is one of his last letters home : — ''Torquay, Jan. 6, 1861. Dear Parents, — I am coming home — home-sick. I cannot stay from home any longer. What's the good of me being so far from home and sick and ill ? 0 God ! I wish I were home never to leave it more ! Tell everybody that I am coming back — no better : worse, worse. What's about climate, about frost or snow or cold weather, when one's at home ? I wish I had never left it. ... I have no money, and I want to get home, home, home. What shall I do, 0 God ! Father, I shall steal to you again, because I did not use you rightly. . . . Will you forgive me? Do I ask that? ... I have come through things that I shall never tell to anybody but you, and you shall keep them secret as the grave. Get my own little room ready quick, quick ; have it all tidy, and clean, and cosy, against my homecoming. I wish to die there, and nobody shall nurse me except my own dear mother, ever, ever again. 0 home, home, home!"^*
(3) " I will say." Our life's journey is not to be all toil and travel; but our souls, in the course of the progress they are making, must break forth into an expression of themselves to God, must relieve themselves by an utterance of their entire repentance and of their earnest longing for forgiveness. " I will say, I will tell the Father all that I have been longing to make known to Him ever since I began to stand upright. Full, frank, free and open, shall be my confession of my past sins. Asking nothing from Him except to be forgiven, willing to take my place merely as a hired servant in His house, I will pour forth my whole soul before Him. I will cast my burden upon Him, and trust to Him to deal with me as He thinks fit. And I will choose the best words I can bring to my mind. I will select the most suitable forms of language known to me, by means of which to show my thankfulness to the Father who has so greatly loved me. ' I will say.' Let it be an apt utterance, even if but a homely ona I will not excuse myself by urging that it is enough
* G. H. Morrison, Sunrise, 10.
ST. LUKE XV. 17-20 299
if I feel and think, but I will take every pains, and leave untried no effort, so that I may render up to God the heart of a true penitent who is yet not satisfied, unless, together with his heart's worship, he can offer up also prayer, praise, and thanks- giving."
^ Professor George Milligan, in his volume on Greek Papyri, (p. 94), quotes a striking letter from a prodigal son to his mother written from Fayum sometime in the second century of our era. The letter which is now in the Berlin Museum runs : —
"Antonius Longus to Nilous his mother; many greetings. I continually pray for your health. Each day I direct supplica- tion on your behalf to the Lord Serapis. I wish you to know that I had no hope that you would come up to the metropolis. On this account neither did I enter into the city. And I was ashamed to come to Karanis because I am going about in rags. I am writing to let you know that I am naked. I beseech you, mother, be reconciled to me. But I know what I have brought upon myself. Punished I have been in any case. I know that I have sinned."
The pathetic letter, which is incomplete, breaks off with these words : —
"Come thyself. ... I have heard that ... I beseech thee ... I almost ... I beseech thee ... I will . . . not ... do otherwise."
III.
Eestoration.
1. In this wonderful picture, Jesus has given us the most attractive and most perfect image of God that came from His lips. That longing and looking for His lost one's return ; the going out to meet him; the kiss of welcome and the fond embrace; the prompt, frank, and complete forgiveness ; the utter silence and forgetf ulness concerning the evil and shameful past, as if it had ) never been ; the festal robes and the rejoicing guests ; the infinite^ tenderness, delicacy, and sweetness of it all, make up an appealing and affecting portrait which chains our admiration, stirs our deepest hearts, and goes beyond all thought. We feel that there is something far more than human in this. It is the beauty of God ; it is the unspeakable grace of the Divine Fatherhood ; and it is the great, 'pitiful, forgiving heart of God that the story brings