This was the meeting--such was the reconciliation! Full as it is of absorbing feeling, its moral element is not to be forgotten. Read its lessons, and we note first of all forgiveness of the offence in view of the penitence of the offender; secondly, restoration to favor on the ground of amendment; thirdly, justice to all parties and no injustice to the rights of the elder son, who had not wasted his patrimony, yet, who was moved to look with a jealous eye at the feasting in honor of his prodigal brother's return. Mercy is triumphant, yet justice is not slighted, and whilst the prodigal is restored to his place in his father's heart and household, all the consequences of his transgression do not cease; his portion of the substance is not as if he had wasted nothing, and he is not exempt from a long course of self-discipline and correction. Forgiveness does not end discipline, but rather begins its just action, by bringing the offender into the sphere of moral and spiritual allegiance.
Such is the story of the Prodigal Son in his fall and his recovery--a rich lesson of earthly experience and of heavenly faith. What family is there that is not called at some time, and in some measure, to apply its point to themselves?
Parents and guardians have some trials that the world knows of, and some that escape the public ear. Rare, indeed, the home that has no trace of the prodigal, and makes no demand on the heart of forgiveness. Our prevalent manners seem to set a bounty upon prodigality, and make youth, the true season of control and preparation, the ill-timed season for indulgence and extravagance. Many sons have the spending of a prince's income without the spur of a prince's ambition; and probably not a few families in our own community encourage a reckless waste that would be thought wicked in many a palace; whilst the self-will, thus pampered, is not trained to labor for any definite aim or worthy object. In homes less affluent, the case may be still worse, and the sons and daughters of persons in a medium position catch the bad ambition, and launch out into an extravagance as ruinous as it is infatuated. It is wrong--all wrong. The prodigal, in his craving for pardon, well marked the error of his course, and proved how much he had sinned against a father's purpose in intrusting him, prematurely, with such means of usefulness and honor, to be squandered in idleness and shame. Happy they who learn the lesson without such bitter experience, and who start from the first with a worthy object in view. Here is the great question that over presses upon us: How check the waste of talent and substance among our youth? how redeem the most susceptible years from frivolity and extravagance? There can be essentially but one answer, however various the forms of its expression. From the very first, let the young be trained to pursue some worthy object, and let the ideal of dignity be placed not in dainty indolence, but in active usefulness. Let every household cherish this creed in all its spirit and economy; let education be called perversion when it does not foster this purpose; let mercy itself when most tender and forgiving, most earnestly breathe this incentive.