300 THE RETURN TO THE FATHER
to view, and that stands for ever prominent in our thoughts of it.
^ A lad from the north country strayed or stole into one of our great London cathedrals. He was lonely, dejected, friendless, and ashamed. He had sown his wild oats and a good many other things — gambled, drunk, and fooled away money, health, and character. Disgraced, hungry, desperate, and broken-hearted, he crept in with the vast congregation to the sacred building. The preacher read the lesson for the day. It was this incomparable parable. He read it without comment, but with clear and impassioned elocution. The outcast drank it all in with ears and heart strained to intensity ; and when it was finished, forgetting the place, people, and everything else, he cried out audibly, " Eh, but yon was a grand old man ! " And the whole world of Bible- readers have said substantially the same thing when they came to this imperishable picture.^
2. Though the prodigal sins, yet, as the parable shows, the fatherly heart never changes. The separation between man and God, the separation between us and God, has always been on one side only — on ours. "Be ye reconciled to God." It is this unshaken certainty of the Fatherhood of God that can save man at his worst from despair. God's forgiveness is not indeed weakness, an easy overlooking of sin. To know what sin is in itself must make that thought impossible. But forgiveness is God's delight in seeing His children realize their sonship; it is God's welcome home to them.
Spake our Lord: "If one draw near Unto God — with praise and prayer — Half a cubit, God will go Twenty leagues to meet him so."
He who walketh unto God, God will run upon the road, All the quicklier to forgive One who learns at last to live.^
i ^ A great preacher used to tell the story of a farmer he knew. His daughter ran away from home, once, twice, three times, and on going into the county town one day he was told that she was
^ J. G. Greenhough, PardbUs of Jesus, 393. ^ Sir Edwin Arnold,
ST. LUKE XV. 17-20 301
up before the magistrate for disorderly conduct. His landlord sat on the bench, and said : " Mr. So-and-so, we all respect you ; take your daughter home." But the old man said: "She is no daughter of mine any longer. I forgave her once, I took her back twice, but when she went away the third time I gathered my people together in family worship and took my knife and cut her name out of the family Bible."
3. The Father's welcome exceeds the son's fondest dream. "Make me," said the prodigal, "as one of thy hired servants." He was a slave on his outward journey, a slave in the land of revelry and indulgence, a slave in the midst of the husks, the troughs, and the pig dealers, a slave when he came to himself and thought of his father's hired servants, a slave every step of the way home as he rehearsed his plea and story. But as he drew near to the old homestead the child-life began to flutter in his heart, and as he saw his father's look, and heard the gladness of his father's voice, and felt the warmth of his father's kiss, the son began to grow, and grew so fast that as a matter of fact he never ; finished his story. The son could not say what the slave had prepared and rehearsed. That is the remedy — a renewed look at God's face and a better acquaintanceship with the Father's heart. It is the surprise and sacrifice of Divine grace that will depose the servant and crown the son.
^ When father and son have met, there is no longer any word of hired servants. Fear, shame, distrust of self, the burden of responsibility, are all swallowed up in love. One sight of the father's face, the great embrace of the beloved arm thrown around his rags, the tears that fell upon his neck — these settle all the problems which in cold blood we settle otherwise.
Love took up the ha,rp of Life, and smote on all the chords
with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out
of sight.
Self-distrust even has passed, for love has found a natural and happy solution. No hard responsibilities to which our moral character is inadequate are thrust upon us ; no unbearable lonely freedom is given us to manage rightly. The responsibilities of life in the father's house are different from those of the far country. For the father is there, and we have learned at last to love him,
302 THE RETURN TO THE FATHER
and that love has become a far more commanding law thau hired service can ever know.^
^ There are no degrees of forgiveness. There are degrees in the holiness that follows forgiveness ; but pardon must be perfect at its birth. Forgiveness restores each man to the place he had before he fell. If the prodigal had been a hired servant previous to his fall, he would have been made a hired servant again. There would have been no sting in that ; it would have involved no stigma. But to make him a servant after he had been a son would have perpetuated the pain of memory. Nothing impedes my progress like remembrance of a dark yesterday. When the page is already blotted, I am apt to blot it more. I lose heart ; I say, " It is already tarnished ; what does it matter now ? " If I am to get a fair start, it must be a bright start — a start with the ring and the robe. It will not help me that you lift me from the far country if you give me a place second to my former self. That second place is my yesterday, and I should walk by its darkness. It would dog my footsteps ; it would never let me go. I should not feel that sin was unworthy of me — below me. I should always be fingering my ticket-of-leave. I should never be able to soar for the remembrance of the irons; memory would clip the wings of hope.^