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tions. But see again: “Kill the fatted calf. Make for him a feast of merriment and gladness!” All that these so-called prodigals go out to seek for in the world, losing themselves in the search, is to be had in Jesus Christ. And if we only interpret Him faithfully, and let them see what a glad and full, and not what an attenuated and emascu lated thing, Christian life is, they will be drawn to Him. The lost will be found. T he E lder S on C lass Last of all, Jesus tells us about another son, repre sentative of the fourth class of people who are lost all round about us. These are the lost people who are to be -found in .all the Christian churches, the adherents of all forms of organized religion. And they are typified by a man who was lost by the sheer littleness and pettiness of the life in which he found contentment. He was infinitely more selfish than the younger son; dutiful, but always with an eye to reward; with no sense of obligation, only of compulsion; moved to service, not by the thought of his father’s wishes, but of his commandments. In every church you will , find those whom he repre sents!;!, and there is only one way to win them. Lost indeed they are, but they can be won; and, mark you, the father does not love him any less than he loves his younget brother. There is only one way to win such, who consti tute quite the most obstinate and difficult case of the four classes here represented. Read again in Christ’s word : “He would not go in. Therefore went his father out.” Love, and not indifference, long-suffering, affection and not scorn, are the only forces that can break such an one down. When men cannot understand H is ' ways, Got meets them more than half way. When they will not come in, He goes out to them. When they are sullen and self-satisfied, He does not leave them to, themselves. When they blame their faults on His nature He draws near to save them. When they fling back at Him, as this man did at his father, the seeming injustice of His treatment of them, He does not smite them and leave them as hopeless, but reasons with them.
demand for the opportunity of self-realization, and left home. Had he invested his money and used it to give him power to exploit his fellows, or to gratify his senses, or to live comfortably until the soul within him died, he would still have been just as far from “himself” as he was in the far country—perhaps farther—and infinitely more difficult to win. His was a life without seriousness. Its one purpose was to get and to enjoy. Obviously, a strong- marked personality, he was convinced that there was far more in life than the humdrum work of the farm. There was adventure. There were discoveries to be made in the far country beyond the horizon. He determined no longer to be balked of them. When he ultimately “came to himself/¡’.when he got the new and true viewpoint of life, he was at once made con scious, not of the sin of riotous living, not of the sin of squandering his money, nor even of his unspeakable con nection with wrong people. He became aware of his sin against heaven, and of the unworthy conduct which had become his record by his outrage of life’s true purpose. Before he left home he said, “Give me!” When he got back home he said, “Make me!” In the days of his ignorance, “Give me what is mine!” In the day of his awakening, “Make me what I ought to be!” There are all round about us people—and young people in particular—who are misunderstood and suspected, and who are in consequence bored with religion and uninter ested in anything connected with it. ' Unspokenly, they crave sympathy, and seek after self-expression. Of course, they suffer tremendously in character; but there are traces of royalty beneath obvious evidences of ruin. They labor under the misconception that any idea of God is merely prohibitory of the desires of their nature. They have gone out to seek in a far country what they failed to find in their homes. And what they failed to find also in the Christian Church. One of the reasons for their failure is that there is too much “Don’t,” and not enough “Do,” in the average presentation of the Christian Gospel. They go out into the world seeking for good times, for fulness of mental, or material, or physical satisfac
No E as t or W es t
In Christ there is no East or West In Him no South or North, But'one great Fellowship of Love Throughout the whole wide earth.
In H}m shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find. His service is the golden cord Close-binding all mankind.
Join hands then, Brothers of the Faith, Whate’er your race may be! Who serves my Father as a son Is surely kin to me.
In Christ now meet both East and West, In Him meet South and North, All Christly souls are one in Him, Throughout the whole wide earth. —John Oxenham.
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