the father's compassion and clemency. But while the children, by their disobedience, may forfeit their filial rights, the great Father can never be deprived of His. Whatever their conduct, He remains the Father still, and entertains towards them that deep, that infinite love, which characterizes Him. He has provided for the restoration of all; and freely extends His mercy to every returning

The arrogant Pharisee was made to feel that the despised sinner was a brother, and equally with himself an object of the Divine love. And here, too, is rebuked the theology which would limit the Father's redeeming grace to a privileged few. There is no limit to His mercy, and no capriciousness in its manifestation. We are next led to contemplate the rebellion and ingratitude of man. "Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." He asks for his portion of the inheritance almost in the form of a legal claim. While he says, "Give," it is only from necessity that he does so; and evidently in disposition he is asserting a fancied right. What might ultimately become his, he demands now. He does not recognize any disinheriting power in the father, and urges an immediate possession. This is no sudden outburst of youthful passion. It is rather the expression of a secretlycherished desire; clearly indicating his alienation of heart from his father and his home. He is no longer a son in feeling, but an alien and a stranger; and he regards the exercise of paternal authority over him as irksome. In his self-assertion he can and will endure it no longer; he aspires to self-control and freedom. All this is understood by the father; and, therefore, he will not reply by an act of mere authority to the wrong done him. The Saviour elevates the father's love to the Divine sphere, and leads him to act otherwise than as fathers generally might be expected to do. He is not disposed to become a despotic master to a child that has sunk below the condition of a servant. He knows that entreaty will be useless; and prefers to allow him to take his freedom, and to prove its bitterness in its fruits. "He divided unto them his living."

With what point and force is the spiritual condition of mankind here presented! The startling utterance, "Ye shall be as gods," withered the filial love of man's heart. Enriched by a Divine fatherly provision, and ruled with infinite benignity, he contemns the one, and chafes under the other. He must become a god to himself, and reign in unconditional freedom, no longer responsible to another. The sin of rebellion was consummated, and dire has been its results. God would not restrain His creature by the putting forth of His power. He had created him a spiritual being with the capacity of personal action; and He would not compel his obedience. The rebel was permitted to make trial of his

fancied liberty; and was taught by sad experience that true liberty is only to be found in the love and service of God, who will have no service but by consent. And still the natural man says in his heart, "I desire no God." He would dethrone his Maker, if he had the power. He rejects the relation between himself and his Father, and would gladly cut the tie that binds them to each other. He would fain live uncontrolled by the considerations of Divine right, and law, and retribution. God accordingly allows him to go forth in the abuse of his moral freedom, as an act of holy righteousness, and yet even of love, in the assurance that only in the experience of its galling bondage and degrading misery, will he be recovered to the feeling of a loyal and devoted son.

"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together." The object of his demand is speedily made apparent: filial love has died out in his heart, and now the fact is openly declared. His portion of the inheritance is converted into a portable form, with a deliberation that expresses in the strongest manner his indifference to the feelings of his father. Free to act according to his desires, he determines to take his fill of the joys of liberty; he "took his journey into a far country," xúpav pakрáv, a country as far away as possible. There his father's eye will not be able to reach him, and he will try to forget him in the abounding pleasures he anticipates. "In this emphatic and most pregnant pakpáv, which significantly combines with the last hypocritical nárep, the spirit of apostasy and departure from God is exhibited as the full consummation of sin." Taking to himself, as if absolutely his own, the gifts of God, the alienated sinner attempts to forget Him, and surrenders himself to a life which, he thinks, becomes his intelligence and freedom. He deliberately seeks a land where God is not; he resolutely closes his eyes upon the proofs of His presence which his own heritage of blessing furnishes. He will not have God to reign over him; but will enjoy a personal sovereignty, which proves to be "an heritage of woe."

We have next a vivid representation of the inevitable results of sin. "And there wasted his substance with riotous living." The gathering and the waste are placed in striking contrast. In the exultation of his newly-gained liberty, he has no thought of the possible dissipation of his means. He proceeds to act as if they were exhaustless; and freely admits to his fellowship such as will delight to participate in his profligacy. The vulture scents the prey from afar, and speedily sweeps down upon it. No less certainly and swiftly will the vultures of human society gather round. the reckless spendthrift. He has associates in abundance, who applaud his generosity, but who also soon convince him that it is not difficult to exhaust his treasure. "When he had spent all,

there arose a mighty famine in that land." The presence of the "famine" adds depth of colouring and force to the picture, and at the same time expresses a great moral truth. A penniless condition would in itself have been distressing to the prodigal; but the arising of famine" intensifies the difficulty. The companions of his sinful pleasures have deserted him: they must seek other victims. It is no part of their purpose either to sympathize with him, or to assist him in the poverty which has come upon him as "an armed man." "And he began to be in want." Actual destitution has overtaken him. It is not the mere pressure of scarcity, which might compel him to diminish his lavish expenditure, but positive "want" that he is made to feel: the pangs of hunger take hold of him. It is impossible to delude himself on this point. Clearly an effort of some kind must be ade, or he will perish. Does he now think that it will be well for him to return to the home that he has despised? By no means. Though "his substance" is "wasted," his self-reliant spirit is not yet humbled.

"He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country." He determines to rely upon his own resources; but is compelled to seek association to carry out his purpose. He appears to have imposed, fastened himself, éxodλýn, upon the "citizen," who treated him accordingly. He begs for employment as a means of subsistence. There is no consideration paid to his former position; he must do such work as the "citizen" may have for him, or is disposed to give him. Perhaps we may say, "He enters into stricter and closer fellowship with the heathens and sinners of the place; but this fellowship can only result in dependence. He gives himself up to bondage, pledges himself wholly to the world.”

"And he sent him into his fields to feed swine." The prodigal is reduced to the necessity of accepting the most degrading form of service, must suffer the bitter mortification of becoming a swineherd. But he has not even yet reached the depth of his misery. The remuneration he receives is not sufficient for the supply of his most urgent wants. "He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." If that were permitted, however freely he might take them, they could not meet his requirements; yet "no man gave unto him " anything better. His misery is now complete. He is unable to provide for himself, and all others refuse him the slightest help. What a picture does the great Master here present! The recently luxurious youth is seen, in the midst of his herd, half clad in the tatters of his former gay attire; abandoned by all, faint, and perishing; but now broken in spirit. He has reached the point of degradation from which amendment is possible. The scene is one of gloom and

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wretchedness; but, at the same time, how terribly true to nature, and to the condition of the sinner!

The rebellious heart of man, departing in its pride from God, prompts him to boast of his personal resources, and to waste them as recklessly as the prodigal. The downward progress of the natural man's history is here foreshadowed. He will live without. God; and, in the marvellous forbearance of love, he is permitted to make the attempt, that he may be made the more painfully conscious of his soul-destitution. Sooner or later he will feel the bitterness of his true state. "The pleasures of sin" can only be "for a season," and are inevitably succeeded by "a mighty famine" of spiritual want. Secular pursuits, associations, and honours are soon found to be emptiness and vanity. The wanderer from God is constrained to know that a life of worldliness is unworthy and dishonouring; but still there may be no true conversion of his will to what is right. He may yet with avidity consume "husks," as if they were the most suitable food for his soul; indeed, so long as he can make them satisfy his desires, he will seek nothing better. But they fail to meet his urgent necessities; they only make him more bitterly conscious of the depth of wretchedness into which he has sunk; until, at length, the fact is forced upon him that he is, in the profoundest sense, poor, and naked, and perishing.

The Saviour next shows us that a just sense of destitution and danger is one of the means used to lead men to repentance. "He came to himself." The wilful youth has been allowed to prove the bitter fruits of sin. Though he has attempted to forget his father, and to despise the thought of dependence upon him, his father has not forgotten him. It is true that help has not been sent to him in the land of his choice. He must come to know that it is an abode of famine and death. The discipline is severe, but it is salutary. By suffering must be dispelled the delusion which has held him in bondage. His whole condition has been alien to his origin. He has been living in a strange land, of which he desired to become a permanent citizen;" but it has refused him a sustenance, and he has sunk in it to the most abject circumstances. What shall he now do? Whither shall he go? The recollection steals upon him that he has a father, and that he too is yet a son. Selfasserting, ungrateful, and wicked as he has been, the endearing relation still exists between them. With such thoughts as these, he has come to rightness of apprehension; and the way of hope and deliverance is opening itself to him. So by a similar process the sinner is humbled, broken, and becomes penitent in spirit; and, having come to himself, will now come to God.

The parable next indicates the progressive steps of a true repent

ance. Though the Saviour may be said to "set forth human agency in the work of conversion," that conversion, it must also be said, is promoted by the grace which seeks the lost one through the pressure of need. Under the influence of grace the turning of the heart must be voluntary; and, therefore, must have a full internal realization. The wanderer reflects upon his hopeless condition. "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" We do not think that we are to see in the "hired servants" the members of the lower creation, however much the rest and ease of creation, animate and inanimate, may make apparent the discord which the sinner has induced within himself. We must at least see a reference to those who are faithfully serving God in the orderly prosecution of the obligations of life, though they may not have advanced to the relation of children, and who are not without some form of reward. But we prefer to recognize here an indication of the case of those who have been received into the home of God, and who, in the spirit of grateful devotion, delight to do the work of servants to the Divine Father. This penitent has very partial views of the wider domain of God's love; and the Saviour represents him as speaking out of his own limited apprehension. It is impossible in parable to express all the inner significations of the kingdom of God, but it is here sufficient that the condition of the prodigal is contrasted with that of those "servants." The humblest of them enjoys the protection and "daily bread" of his Father's house, and is honoured in the loyal performance of his duties. The blessedness of being in their right position, and of conscious security, is theirs. But he, verily a son, is actually destitute of food, is contemptuously left by those around him to "perish with hunger." This reflection and contrast are the first expressions of a return to soundness of mind. And so in the case of every sinner, reflection reveals at once his misery and his relenting to himself. He thus comes to see his sin, and the peril in which it has involved him: he is "without hope" in himself for the great future. He sees that his sinful departure from God is the source of all the soul-poverty and distress he now experiences, and feels deeply how it might have been far otherwise with him.

This self-scrutiny develops itself in his determination, “I will arise and go to my father." He cannot now remain where he is, though he may not feel assured of being restored to his forfeited position. To tarry in the "far country" will be speedily fatal. Any place in his father's household he will eagerly and thankfully accept. He is willing to eat the coarsest bread there. His repentance is real and deep: he will make the trial of return, whatever the issue