The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-04-17
THE PRODIGAL'SRETCRN
One os Rev. DR.. Talmage's Easter
Day Sermons.
Yhe Lessons Taught by tho Familiar Para
ble-Now IL the Time to Say NJ 8N
Will Arise and Go to i a M
MY Father M y8

The following DISCOURSE based upor
the familiar parable of THE Prodigal
Son." was one Of those delivered By
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage before his
Washington congregation on Easter
day. The text was:
Iwill arise and go to my father--Luhe ~.
Is Is rs eS 5a{sr
There is nothing like hunger to take
che energy out of 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 rich mans. SON to
wear; this is no kind of business for
Jew to be engaged in, feeding swine;
FL go home; will arise and go to my
father" | know there are great
many people who try to throw a fas-
cination, romance, halo about sin;
but Notwithstanding all that Lord
Byron and George Sand have said in
regard to it, it is mean, low con-
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 a 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
bloodhonnds 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 pit!
1.-The wages of sin is death. y" Oh! the
young man of the. text was wise
when he uttered the resolutions: II
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
and the prosecutor said: Where is
that heretic?n The Christian woman
said: You open that trunk and YOU
will see the hereto" The prosecutor
opened the trunk, and on the top of
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 take up the mirror of Gods
W ord to-day would that, instead of
seeing the prodigal of the text, we
might see ourselyes-our want, our
wandering, our sin, our lost condition,
so that we might be rs wise as this
young man was and say: 81 will arise
and go to my father" The resolution
of this text was formed in disgust at
his present circumstances. If 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.
IL he had his pockets full of
money, If he had been able 1
to say: II 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 / should
go home; ! have plenty Of money, 4
plenty OF pleasant surroundings; why
should 1 go homer" Ali it was his {
1t 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 soul2 Why E,
don't you speak about the progress q
of the nineteenth century, and talk I
of something more exhiiarating9" IL i
Is for this reasons Aman never wants I
the Gospel until he realizes he is in q
state. Suppose should 9
come to you In your home. and yon are F,
in good, sound, robust health, and {
should begin TO talk about medicines, -,
and about how much better this medi- ,