“PERADVENTURE these pages may be turned over by someone whose life has hitherto been a course of self-pleasing, but to whom the days have come when he says, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’ You once were happy, you at least were gay; but you have lost your fortune, you have lost your popularity, or your good position; you have lost that large fund of hilarity and animal exuberance which made up for every other lack; or, sadder still, there has been taken away with a stroke the desire of your eyes, and now that the light of your life is extinguished, small is the joy which passing hours bring, faint the hope which the future awakens.
“Yet, dear friend, if you are wise, from this very season may date the best and most blessed time in all your history. Like the passenger through the tunneled Alps, from the dark and the cold and the stifling air emerging on the broad light-flooded plains of Lombardy, it is by a way which they know not, gloomy and underground, that the convoy is carried which God’s Spirit is bringing to the wealthy place; and your present grief you will have no reason to regret if it introduce you to God’s friendship, and to joys which do not perish in the using.
“It may not have struck you, but you have been trying to create your own Eden, and it was an Eden with the living God left out. For a time the experiment seemed to prosper, but if it is blighted you have no right to complain; and though it should never blossom again, even the howling wilderness does you a service if it makes you a pilgrim and turns your fate to the better land. Affliction is God’s message. This mighty famine is no accident; it is God’s voice sounding through the far country, and saying to you COME HOME!
“Yes, at this moment you are miserable. Disappointed with yourself, dissatisfied with your lot, in broken health, bereft of your dearest friend, you are in the position which, sooner or later, every one will find himself who has placed his happiness in things created or things external. But even at this moment there are many outwardly less favored than you, who are contented and cheerful. You are invited to join than. Will you not go? It is ‘bread’ you need. You have fasted long, and your soul is weak. The word of God will give you strength and stamina. It is clothing you need. God will clothe you with the robe of His righteousness, and will adorn you with the garments of the great salvation. It is shelter you need. You will find it in the Father’s house. It is honorable employment you need. You will find it in the Father’s service. It is love you need. You will find it in the Father’s arms.
“Prodigal son! prodigal daughter! has not God been very kind to you? Is there a good thing you possess which has not come from His hand? Is it not in Him that you have lived and moved and had your being? Who was it that through the eyes of your mother smiled over your cradle, and surrounded life’s outset with love and endearment? Who was it that for your first tottering steps spangled the turf with the daisies of spring and fanned your fresh face with its breezes? Who was it that in hushed and holy hours went on before you through the weekly days of rest and hymns and Jesus’ sweet name, alluring you to glory, honor and immortality? And whose bright countenance was that which sometimes came so near your own, leaving a soft and pleasant glow, till one provocation after another rose up and darkened all the atmosphere and shut it out forever? Oh, what a sin to go away from such goodness! What a sin to spend in self-pleasing the gifts of such bounty! What a sin to be a lover of pleasure rather than the lover of God!
“Are you not sorry? In forsaking such a home and coming to this far country, have you not played the fool and erred exceedingly? In the life you have led, in the passions you have indulged, in the thorough estrangement of your heart from Infinite Excellence, do you not feel that you have sinned against heaven, and that you are no more worthy to be called God’s son?
“And will you not arise and go to your Father? Is it not wonderful that He should still desire your return? In His house there is bread and to spare, and He invites you home. Arise and go.
“Sobered by his altered circumstances, the prodigal was brought to his right mind, and in the way in which he spoke of himself he showed right feeling, and in the determination, ‘I will arise and go to my father,’ he came to a right resolution; but the whole was crowned and completed by his taking the right step— ‘he arose and to his father he came.’ Instead of musing any longer, he started up and at once commenced his journey. Disgusted with the far country, its swine, and its citizens, its harlots and riotous living, he instantly and forever renounced them; and his heart full of shame and contrition with a timid, tender hopefulness, he had already commenced his journey.
“That promptitude saved him. If the holy Spirit of God now moves you, let no pretext detain you; but breaking away from every snare in this propitious moment—and with full purpose of heart —give yourself to God. No time can be more opportune, and whilst God waits to be gracious, all that the devil asks is delay.
“You are still in the world where pardon may be found. God has not let you go. He has not forgotten you. It is His voice which calls you. It is His Spirit which is striving with your spirit. Notwithstanding all that you have done, He has not yet cast you off forever... Oh, yield at last to God’s mercy, and let these bands of love draw you home.”
“Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation.” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
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