The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1896-05-16
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.
One of Rev. DR.. Talmage's Easter
Day Sermons.
The Lesson, Taught by the Familiar Para
blo-Now Is the Time to say al
VIII Arise and Go to
My Father"

Z
| Son." was one of those delivered by
Rev. L. Dewitt Talmage before his
Washington congregation on Easter
| day. The text was:
| Twill arise and go to my father.-Luke xv.,
| IS. -
There is nothing like hunger to take
| the energy out of a man. A hungry
| man can toll neither with hand nor
| foot. There has been many an
army defeated, not SO much for lack
| of ammunition as for lack of bread.
| 1t was that fact that took the fire out
of this young man of the text. Storm
and exposure will wear out any mans
| life in time, but hunger makes quick
work. The most awful cry ever heard
on earth is the cry for bread. A
| traveller tells us that in Asia Minor
| there are trees which bear fruit look
ing very much like the long bean of
our time. 1t is called the carob. Once
in awhile the people, reduced to des-
| titution, would eat these carobs, but
generally the carobs. the beans spoken
of here in the text, were thrown only
to the swine, and they crunched them
with great avidity. But this young
man of my text could not even get
them without stealing them. So one
day, amid the swine troughs, he began
to soliloquize. He says: ''These are
no clothes for a rich mans son to
| wear; this is no kind of business for
Jew to be engaged in, feeding swine;
I'll go home; l will arise and go to my
father" / know there are q great
many people who try to throw fas-
cination, a romance, halo about sin;
but notwithstanding all that Lord
Byron and George Sand have said in
regard to it, it is mean, low con-
| temptible business, and putting food
and fodder into the troughs of a herd
of iniquities that root and wallow in
the soul of man is very poor
business for men and women intend
ed to be sons and daughters of the
Lord Almighty, and when this young
man resolved to go home it was very
wise thing for him to do, and the only
question is, whether we will follow
him. Satan promises large wages if
we will serve him; but he clothes his
victims with rags, and he pinches them
with hunger, and when they start out
to do better he sets after them all the
bloodhounds of hell. Satan comes to
us to-day and he promises all luxuries
and emoluments if we will only serve
him. Liar, down with thee to the pitt
1.-THE wages of sin is DEATH" Oh! the
young man of the text was wise
when he uttered the resolution: Il
will arise and go to my father" In
the time of Mary, the prosecutor, a
prosecutor came to Christian woman
who had hidden in her house for the
Lords sake one of Christ's servants,
and the prosecutor said: where is
that heretic?" The Christian woman
said: you open that trunk and you
will see the hereto" The prosecutor
the linen of the trunk he saw glass.
He said: There is no hereto here"
"Ah!" she said, ''you look in the glass
and you will see the hereto"
AS l take up the mirror of Gods
Word to-day would that, instead of
seeing the prodigal of the text, we
| might see ourselves-our want. our
wandering, our sin, our lost condition,
SO that we might be as wise as this
young man was and say: II will arise
and go to my father" The resolution
of this text was formed in disgust at
his present circumstances. Ii this
young man had been by his employer
set to culturing flowers, or training
vines over an arbor, or keeping an ac-
count of the pork market, or over
seeing other laborers, he would
not have thought of going home.
| If he had his pockets full of
money, L he had been able
to say: 81 have $1,000 now
of my own, what the use of my going
back to my fathers house? Do you
think I'm going back to apologize to
the old man? Why, he would put me
on the limits; he would not have going
on around the old place such conduct
as have been engaged in; 1 won't go
home; there is no reason why l should
| go home; / have plenty of money,
| plenty of pleasant surroundings; why
should 1 GO home?" All! it was his
pauperism, it was his beggary. He
had to go home. Some man comes and
says to me: "Why doyou talk about the
ruined state of the human soul? Why
don't you speak about the progress
of the nineteenth century, and talk
of something more exhilarating?" 1t
Is for this reason: A man never wants
the Gospel until he realizes he is In a
famine-struck state. Suppose should
| come to you in your home. and you are
in good, sound, robust health, and /
should begin to talk about medicines,
| and about how much better this medi-
| cine is than that, and some other medi-
cine than some other medicine, and
talk about this physician and that
| physician. After awhile you would
get tired, and you would say: II
don't want to hear about medicines.
Why do you talk to me of ply
sicians?" never have a doctor. :"
But suppose l come into your
house and l find you severely
sick, and / know the medicines
that will cure you, and know the
| physician who is skilful enough to
meet your case. You say: Bring on
all that medicine, bring on that physi-
clan, am terribly sick, and / want
help" If come to you and you feel
you are all right in body, and all right
in mind. and all right in soul, you
3