Part 11

We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and secondly, the secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet says,

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high!"

an orphan's blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God's own Providence. Is it not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate, as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up, at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. "Hence," says that gifted and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, "not rare instances in which step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before them all the kindness and fidelity which they received from step-parents in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they understand what you have done for them."

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When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross. In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject, which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel, encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who remember the parent's image in the daughter's face. The story of Moses, the foundling of the Nile, and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob's house, is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children's sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and affections. Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future years will deepen the former communion.

The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed it, in the Father. "I will not leave you comfortless,"--or orphaned, as the word is literally to be translated,--"I will come to you. Ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." They that learn to live in the Father's love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of an hour win the child of mortality's ear more readily than the far-seeing parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here, has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that opened that disciple's vision; there burns the love that glowed in the mother's faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God's. Let the sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary's holy maternity, fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human loveliness,--call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of the Parent above all parents--to the home that unites all homes in one.

_May._

The Young Prodigal.

THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.

How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially of his fall and his recovery.

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The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows, might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from notorious spendthrifts and open profligates, that wicked waste scatters the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in dissipation the anguish of remorse.

It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble, wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan who comes to him as an angel of light.

The very tenderness shown to him at home may add to his besetting weakness, by encouraging habits of self-indulgence. In fact, the parable itself allows room for the surmise, that the younger son, from having less care put upon him than the elder, was less schooled in self-reliance, and because every thing was done for him as the pet of the family, he was in danger of doing too little for himself. Certainly indulgence may be as dangerous an extreme as sternness, and as many youths are spoiled by over fondness as are made desperate by unkindness. Sometimes both extremes unite in the same fitful temper, and children, now petted and now cursed, learn indolence and rebellion in the same perverse domestic school. Rare is the wisdom that can adjust the discipline to each temperament, and encourage without over-indulgence, and correct without harshness. Not always, however, is the fault of the child to be traced to error in the parent, for every child has powers and responsibilities of his own, and besides his own perverse will, there is a third party that frequently comes in to make mischief.

At home or abroad this tempter may come, and in forms as many as are the shapes of folly and sin. The son may not have erred simply in desiring to go from home to seek his fortunes. He may have intended to use his portion of the inheritance in a more profitable way than at home, and perhaps return to the quiet old farm-house, rich in treasure and experience, a benefactor to the whole family. Youth is full of dreams, and of not ignoble dreams, and of the thousands of young men who every month go out into the world to seek their fortune, few, if any, mean to throw their hopes away in dissipation. Young blood is ever sanguine, and fair indeed would this earth be, if it could take the hue and shape of the youthful visions that have brooded upon its future. The very fact that a man hopes much, may throw him into a despair as intense as his hope, and the sanguine dreamer may degenerate under disappointment into the reckless prodigal. The portion of the inheritance which was to swell into affluence, being broken by some mischance, seems good for nothing but a brief round of pleasure, and is squandered in riotous living. Or the wanderer may start with the idea that expensive habits will secure to him friends and position, until he finds that these habits are his masters, and these friends go away when his money is gone. Let any sober-minded man who has consistently tried to use well his means and opportunity, remember the perils that have lurked in his own path, and he will make some due allowance for the temptations that now beset young men. We are not called to lower in the least our standard of virtue, but we are to enlarge our views to measure the extent of the danger, and to relax our severity to win the erring to repentance and amendment. Make the ease our own, and as we look upon the many forms of youthful vice and folly around us, see our own youth thus come back to us, and read the sad lessons as so many chapters in the book of our own possible destiny. Such considerations, instead of making us more lax in principle, will make us more strict, by making us feel more deeply the curse of that transgression, which we thus bring home to our own thoughts. Combine all the various sources of temptation, bear in mind the portions that may come severally from the youth, his guardians and the world, and it will not appear proof of utter depravity that there should be some prodigals on earth.

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The emphasis of the parable turns not upon the fall, but upon the recovery of the erring one, and the portraiture of the various steps in the recovery is so drawn to the life, as to answer with due change of manners and costume for any age. Mark its progress, in the mind of the youth and the parent, and in the final reconciliation of the two.

Mark the change in the feelings of the son. In a short time what a transition in the lot of this reckless roaming boy. His dream of fortune and pleasure has been most rudely broken, and the spendthrift is the penniless outcast. A season of famine, or what in our more commercial age would be called hard times, came on, and the pressure that bears upon all drives him to the very verge of starvation. Where are the gay mansions now that opened their doors so eagerly to the young stranger, so lavish with his wealth? Where are the boon companions that borrowed his money, and rode his horses, and drunk his wine? Where such friends are very likely to be in time of need; ready to cut the acquaintance of the wretch upon whose prosperity they have fattened and fawned. He is in a sad plight, and might have been driven to some desperate crime--to murder or to suicide, did he not learn one of the blessed lessons of God's Providence, and use misery as a stern, yet judicious schoolmaster, to lead him to remorse and penitence.

Suffering wakens him from his vain dream, and he sees things now as they are,--takes upon his shoulders the burden of his griefs,--confesses that he has abused the very generosity of his father, and is no longer worthy to be called his son. Remorse, no proof of depravity past redemption, but proof rather that conscience still lives, and is vindicating her holy law, exalted the poor outcast, even in humbling him to the dust, and lifts the wretch into the penitent, with those words, "I will arise, and go to my father."

This penitence crowns the new experience of the prodigal, and brings him into a new sphere of thought and action. He feels the power of a love that he had slighted, and which now pleads with his soul in an eloquence all the mightier from its tone of expostulation and pity. His childhood reappears to him in all its innocence and privilege,--the old homestead, with its familiar walls and trees, haunts him not as a dream, but as the one reality, and seems to eye his wretchedness with wonder and compassion. He is a changed man now, and turns his face upon the long journey homeward, not merely as an outcast hungry and miserable, but as a penitent seeking forgiveness of the kindness which he had outraged, and asking to do a servant's work on the estate whose income he had wasted.

Look to the other side of the picture, and think of what has been going on in the father's heart. No particulars are given of his feeling during the season of separation, but his heart is a chapter in the book, that life is ever laying open, and what is told of him at the crisis, indicates well his temper during the interval. He had but two boys, and his whole hope and love must have centred in them and their destiny. They may have been dearer to him from being all the memorial left to him of the mother long since taken from the world. The younger may have been the pet of his leisure hours, whilst the elder was busy with the cares of the farm; for there is likely to be a pet child in every family. But the plain facts are enough without laying any tax upon the imagination. He had the common heart of good men, and had shown his willingness to make sacrifices for his children. Many a time in lonely hours he must have thought of the wanderer, and wondered if the boy whom he never forgot, could forget him. The prosperity of his business, the plenty of his crops, the number of his flocks and herds, could not satisfy him; even the sight of the son now with him, but reminded him how broken was his family and how divided his heart. Touches of compassion would mingle with his lonely regrets, and remembering the common weakness of our humanity, he would consider the amount of temptation in wait for every novice, and have misgivings at allowing him to go out alone into the world. Many a time his wistful gaze would rest upon the road taken by the departing wanderer, and he would ask himself if the youth would ever return, and in what condition. One day as he looked, that lonely road had for him a startling apparition. Far in the distance appears a tired, tattered wayfarer, a mere vagrant to the common gaze; but one of the many who seem heir of misery, and for whom compassion itself has little reasonable hope. But no; the eye of affection is ever sharpsighted, and the father sees under that beggar's garb the step and air of his long-lost son; and one look tells to him the whole story of his fortunes. He is a poor and broken-down creature, and comes home penitent, to ask mercy of the love that he had so offended. All is told in those simple words of welcome "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

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.

Never was a young generation launched forth upon a more alluring and bewildering sea than that which now wafts its inviting breezes towards our rising youth. Opportunities thicken and dazzle as never before, and dangers multiply with opportunities; the spur is put to self-indulgence, whilst the reins of discipline are slackened, and society is starting upon an untried and adventurous track, that raises in sober minds quite as much fear as hope. But heaven is always above us, and its light need never fail us. Let the blessed Master's plea for heavenly mercy reveal to us more clearly the way of obedience, and the very tears of penitence water the root of faith and resolution. Youth, so impassioned, self-willed, sanguine,--be prodigal no more. Look to the mark placed before you by your Father in heaven, and measure your dignity by your fidelity to your work. Son--daughter--waste your heart and strength no more upon follies and sins. You have the happiness of many in your keeping, and the Infinite Parent above will smile upon your penitence, and bless you in your fidelity.

Who can look upon the number of youths without high aims and faithful purposes, who are growing up in our cities with opportunities so unparalleled, and not find himself haunted with that ever-recurring question, "What shall we do with our sons?" A state of society that is based upon wealth as the chief good, may offer especial danger to the sons, from the very fact that it gave such incentives to the energy of the fathers, and the wealth gained in hardship may be wasted in dissipation. Some sons, indeed, catch the thrift of their laborious parents, and from love of money, or from family pride, or some better ambition, try to keep or increase their inheritance. But even these are too rarely trained to know the highest uses of property, or the true art of employing the leisure which it offers for recreations, that refresh instead of dissipating the powers. How many there are far below their level, who seem to lose every earnest motive in being free from the necessity of exertion, and who give the infection of their corrupt idleness and false honor to companions who can ill afford any dainty self-indulgence. The commercial spirit that places business energy at the top of the scale of talents and dignities, may do something to check such prodigality; but only a thoroughgoing, manly purpose, looking devoutly to God's will and the solemn work of life, can lay the axe to the root of the evil.