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.
* * * * *
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.
Consider, seriously, young man, that you have a work to do in the world,
whilst it is still called to-day. The charm of life, as well as its true
honor, lies in the earnest pursuit of a worthy object. Beware of adding by
your presence to the number of young men about town, who are all sail and
no ballast, and whose wreck sooner or later is produced by the very
surface spread to the fickle winds of passion. Balance yourself by the
weight of conscious responsibility; guide yourself with a single eye to
the mark of true living. Be something--a genuine reality--not an empty
sham--something in power and in position, not one of the nothings who
parrot the reigning follies and vices. Be yourself--yourself as God has
called you to be by the gift of your powers and opportunities, instead of
trying vainly to be somebody else, by affecting ways and honors never
intended for you; yes, be yourself, even if your genius bids you work at
the mechanic's bench or at the machinist's lathe, instead of trying to be
somebody else in a profession for which you are not adapted, or in aping a
lazy gentility which is a disgrace to any rational creature of God. Be
thus something--be thus yourself--and you cannot be false to man or God. A
true master purpose will quicken and energize the whole being. No longer a
prodigal yourself, your spirit so free and devoted, so blending hearty
manliness with earnest faith, will lead many a wanderer home.
Education of Daughters.
EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.
"Nothing is more neglected than the education of daughters," said Fenelon,
in the first sentence of his noted work on the subject. This cannot be
said with truth now, when so much time, thought and money, are given to
their instruction in the most opposite quarters. Whilst thinking upon this
topic, it seems to me as if every one of its leading aspects had sent a
representation of itself to help our judgment. This month, even the
stranger in our city must have had his attention attracted by the costume
and speech-making of the somewhat brave champions of the Woman's Rights'
party, who have been holding their conventions; and, as if to show up one
extreme by another, the debates of radicalism have run parallel with the
rites of superstition; and, on his way to the hall that rings with
feminine voices that claim masculine honors, he may as he passes many
churches catch the strains of those vesper hymns to the Virgin Mother, by
which Romanism strives to make this beautiful Mary confirm its daughters
in the faith, by that ideal of womanhood so deified in its own loveliness
without need of any borrowed grace of man's.
In his next morning's walk, he will see in the many processions of
boarding-school girls promenading with no very elastic step, quite another
aspect of woman's destiny, and one that may give him mingled feelings as
he meditates upon the future of American mothers and their posterity. If
the stranger comes from a foreign country, he will be interested less in
these three aspects of the subject, than in a fourth of far less assuming
air. He will be more impressed with the looks of the daughters of the
people, with cheery step on their way to the public schools, than with the
champions of reform, the pupils of fashion, or the devotees of the ancient
ritual. Surely the education of girls is not neglected among us; yet,
whether it is wisely attended to, is one of the most serious and pressing
questions of our day,--a question in which every family is vitally
concerned. There are few readers who are not ready to give some thought to
the true idea and method of female education.
* * * * *
We must look for the true idea reverently, as under religious guidance,
not according to our own caprices or opinions. Nothing surely should awe
our wilful conceits into docile attention, more than the effort to find
the calling and the place of the being beyond all others dependent upon
our care. Where but in the school of the Creator and Preserver himself,
shall we learn what our daughters are called to be under his Providence?
Where but therein shall we learn to decipher that fair and wonderful
hieroglyph which God himself carved out in the person of Eve, and which
remains to this day the most expressive cipher of heaven's grace and care.
The language of the Psalmist, so often quoted, is sufficient to define the
idea of female education when freely interpreted. If our daughters,
according to his prayer, should be as corner-stones, polished after the
similitude of a palace, it is clear that their education is to have
accomplishment and solidity such as to fit them for their place as the
main supports of social life. They are to be polished stones. Does not
this expression bring the sanction of Holy Writ against the too frequent
notion that woman is made only to be the servant of man, and that her
chief destiny is to be the drudging underling of his will; not like the
polished stone of a palace wall, but the rough rock at the
foundation,--useful, indeed, but buried under the dust. This idea exists
not merely in savage countries, where woman is actually man's slave, and
reared to be such from childhood, so that a thoughtful mother mourns when
a daughter is born; but our own Christendom reads its own darkest chapter
in the condition of woman, so often forced to drudge for scanty bread and
raiment, perhaps abused by the very man upon whose bidding she waits, and
who dements himself in drunkenness whilst she plies her thankless tasks.
In many quarters where such abominations would be condemned, views
radically the same are held, and an idea of woman's destiny prevails
which takes her from her rightful place as the equal of man, which sinks
her into his drudge, without time for intellectual and spiritual culture,
with little of the leisure and conversation that beguile care of its
sting, and toil of its weariness. Nay, how often is this destiny
unconsciously entailed upon daughters by thoughtless, yet not consciously
unkind, parents, who train up their girls without high aims and enlarged
views, sending them into new homes so poorly endowed with commanding
motives and practical knowledge, as to sink down into the dull monotony of
domestic drudgery. Though the hands may not be overtasked, if the soul is
weighed down to a servile routine, without sentiment or spirituality,
woman is the slave of man,--the neglected rock beneath his dwelling, and
not the polished stone of his home.