He showed me the error of my conduct toward you, and
proved to me that my duty and the inclination of my heart were toward
the same end. He read this morning for the second lesson the story of
the Prodigal Son, and I heard it without recognition and with no
present application until he came to the verse which tells how the
father came to his son 'when he was yet a great way off.' He saw him,
it says, 'when he was yet a great way off,' and ran to meet him. He
did not wait for the boy to knock at his gate and beg to be let in,
but went out to meet him, and took him in his arms and led him back to
his home. Now, my boy, my son, it seems to me as if you had never been
so far off from me as you are at this present time, as if you had
never been so greatly separated from me in every thought and interest;
we are even worse than strangers, for you think that my hand is
against you, that I have closed the door of your home to you and
driven you away. But what I have done I beg of you to forgive: to
forget what I may have said in the past, and only to think of what I
say now. Your brothers are good boys and have been good sons to me,
and God knows I am thankful for such sons, and thankful to them for
bearing themselves as they have done.
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