Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1894 — THE PRODIGAL SON. [ARTICLE]

THE PRODIGAL SON.

Lessons Drawn From the famous Parable. ChrlfitlaDft and Anct-1* Rejoice Over the Conrert—l>r Sermon for tlie Prc»s. ». 1 The Rev. Dr. Talmage, having completed his round the world tour, selected as the subject for last Sunday’s discourse through the press, “Home Again,” the text chosen being Luke xv, 23, “Bring hither the patted calf and kill it.” _ In all ages of the world it has been customary to celebrate joyful events by festivity—the signing of treaties, the proclamation of peace, the Christmas, the marriage. However much on other days of the year our table may have stinted supply, on Thanksgiving Day there must be something bounteous, and all of the comfortable homes of Christendom have at some time celebrated joy ful events by banquet and festivity. • Something has happened in the old homestead greater than anything that has ever happened before. A Favorite son, whom the' world supposed would become a vagabond and outlaw forever, has got tired of sightseeing ami has returned to his father’s house. The world said he never would come back. The old man always said his son would come, fie had been looking for him day after day and year after year. He knew he would come back. Now, having returned to his father’s house the father proclaims celebration. There is a calf in the paddock that nasbeen kept up and fed to the utmost capacity, so as to be ready for some occasion of joy that might come ilong. Ah, there never will be a grander lay on the old homestead than this Jay. Let the butchers do their work and the housekeepers bring in to the table the smoking meat. The musicians will take their places, and the gay group will -move up and Jown the floor. All the friends and neighbors are gathered in, and extra supply is sent out to the table of the servants. The father presides at the table and says grace and thanks God that his long absent boy is home again. Oh, how they missed him! How glad they are to •have him back! One brother indeed stands pouting at the back door and says: “This is a great ado about nothing. This bad boy should have been chastened instead of greeted, i Veal is too good for him!” But the Father says, “Nothing is too good; ! nothing is good enough.” There sits the young man, glad' at the" hearty reception, but a shadow of sorrow flitting across his brow at the remembrance of the trouble he had seen. Allready now. Let the covers lift. Music. He was dead, and he is alive again! He was lost, and he is found! By such bold imagery does the Bible set forth the merrymaking when a soul comes home to God. First of all there is the * new convert’s jov. It is no tame thing to ! become a Christian. The most tre- i mendous moment in a man’s life is when he surrenders himself to God. i The grandest time on the father's homestead is when the boy comes ’ back. Among the great throng who j in the parlors of my church professed Christ one night was a young man, 1 who next morning rang inv doorbell and said: “Sir, I cannot con- ' tain myself with the joy I feel. I came here this morning to express it. I have found more joy in five minutes in serving Gpd than in all the years of my prodigality, and I came to say so.” • Just pass over from those tame joys in which you are- indulging—iovs of this world—into the raptures of j the gospel. The world can not sat- j isfy you, you have found out —Alex- | ander longing for other worlds to j conquer, and yet drowned in his own bottle; Byron whipped by disquietudes around the world; Voltaire cursing his own soul while all the streets of Paris were applauding him; Henry II consuming with hatred against poor Thomas a Becket —all illustrations of the fact that this world can not make a man happy. The very man who poisoned the pommel of the saddle on which Queen Elizabeth rode shouted in the street, “God save the Queen!” One moment the world applauds, and the next moment the world anathemtizes. Oh, come over into this greater jov, this sublime solace, this magnificent beatitude! But I notice that when the prodigal came there was the father’s joy. He did not greet him with a formal “How do you do?” He did not come out and say: “You are unfit to enter. Go out and wash in the trough by the well, and then you can come in. We have had enough trouble with you.” Ah, no! When the proprietor of that estate proclaimed festival, it was an outburst of a father’s love and a father's joy. God is your father. I have not much sympathy with that description of God I soipetimes hear, as though he was n Turkish sultan—hard and unsymj at'.i ‘tic and listning not to the cry of his subjects. A man told me he saw in one of the eastern lands a king riding along, and two men were in altercation, and one charged the other with having eajten his rice. And the King said, “Then slay the man, and by post mortejn examination find whether he has eaten the rice.” And he was slain. Ah, the cruelty of a scene like that! Our God is not a sultan, not a despot, a father—kind, loving, forgiving—and he makes all heaven ring again when a prodigal comes back. “I have no pleasure,” he says, “in the death of

him that dieth.” If a man does not get to heaven,ii it because he wilPnot go there. No difference the color, Tio difference the history, no difference the antecedents, no difference the surroundings, no difference the sin. When the white horses of Christ’s victory are brought out to celebrate the eternal triumph, you may ride one of them, and as God is greater than all his joy is greater, and when a soul comes back there is in his heart, the surging of an infinite ccean of gladness, and to express that gladness it takes all the rivers of pleasure, and all the thrones of pomp, apd all the ages of eternity. It is a jov deeper than all depth, and higher than alt bight, and wider than all width, and vaster than all immensity. It overtops, it undergirds, it outweighs all the united splendor and joy of the united splendor and joy of the universe. Who can tell what God’s joy is? For ten years a father went three times a day to the depot. His son went off in aggravating circumssances, but the father said, “He will come back.” The strain was too much, and his mind parted, and three times a day the father went. In the early morning he watched the train —its arrival, the stepping out of the passengers and then the departure of the train. At noon he was there again watching the advance of the train, watching the departure. At night there again, watching the coming, watching the going, for ten years. He was sure nis son would come back. God has been watching and waiting for some of you, my brothers, ten years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, perhaps fifty years, waiting, waiting, watching, watching, and if this morning the prodigal should, come home what a scene of gladness and festivity and how the great Father’s heart would rejoice at your coming home! You will come, some of you, will you not? Von will! You will! When I see a man whp is bound hand and foot in evil habit emancipated,rejoice over it as though it were my own emancipation. When in our communion service such throngs of young and oid stood up at the altars, and in the presence of heaven and earth and hell attested-their allegiance to Jesus Christ. I felt a joy akin to that which the apostle describes when he says: “Whether in the body, I cannot tell, or out of the body I cannot tell. God knoweth.” Life insurance men will all tell you that ministers of religion, as a class, live longer than any other. It is confirmed by the statistics of all those who calculate upon human longevity. Why is it? There is more draft upon the nervous system than in any other profession, and their toil is most exhausting. I have seen ministers kept on miserable stipends by parsimonious congregations, who wondered at the dullness of the sermons, when the men of God were perplexed almost to death by questions of "livelihood, and had not enough of nutritious food to keep any fire in their o temperament. No fuel, no fire. I havd sometimes seen the inside of the life of many of the American clergymen—never accepti ing theiy hospitality, because they can not afford it —but I have seen ; them struggle on with salaries of #SOO and #6OO a year, the 'average less than that, their struggle well depicted by the western missionary who says in a letter: “Thank you for your last remittance. Until it came we had not any meat in our house for one year, and all last winter, although it was a severe winter, our children wore their summer clothes.” =

And these men of God I find in different parts of the land struggling against annoyances and exasperations innumerable, some of them week after week entertaining agents who have maps to sell and submitting themselves to all styles of annoyance, and yet without complaint and cheerful of soul. Hoy/ do you account for the fact that these life insurance men tell us that ministers as a class live longer than any others? It is because of the joy of their work, the joy of the harvest field, the joy of greeting prodigals home to their Father’s house. I notice, also, when the prodigal comes back all earnest Christians rejoice. If you stood on a promontory, and there was a hurricane at sea, and it was blowing toward the rocks, and you saw people get ashore in the lifeboats, and the very last man got on the rocks in safety, you could not control your joy. And it is a glad time when the church of God sees men who are tossed on the ocean of their sins plant their feet in the rock Christ Jesus. Once more I remark that when the prodigal gets back the inhabitants of heaven keep festival. lam very certain of it. If you have never seen a telegraphic chart, you have no idea how many cities are connected together and how many lands. Nearly all the neighborhoods of the world seem reticulated, and news flies from city to city and from continent to continent, but more rapidly go the tidings from earth to heaven, and when a prodigal returns it is announced before the throne of God, and if these souls today should enter the kingdom there would be some one in the heavenly kingdom to say, “That’S my father," “That's my mother,' “That’s my son," “That’s my daughter,” “That’s my friend," “That’s the one I used to .pray for," “That’s the one for whom I wept so tears,” and one soul would say “Hosanna!” and another soul would say “Hallelujah!” J'•