roved to be a more effective minister for good than pleasure
had been. He was reduced to the lowest and most menial service, that of
herding swine, which occupation, to a Jew, was the extreme of
degradation. Suffering brought him to himself. He, the son of honorable
parentage, was feeding pigs and eating with them, while even the hired
servants at home had good food in plenty and to spare. He realized not
alone his abject foolishness in leaving his father's well-spread table
to batten with hogs, but the unrighteousness of his selfish desertion;
he was not only remorseful but repentant. He had sinned against his
father and against God; he would return, confess his sin, and ask, not
to be reinstated as a son, but to be allowed to work as a hired servant.
Having resolved he delayed not, but immediately set out to find his long
way back to home and father.

The father became aware of the prodigal's approach and hastened to meet
him. Without a word of condemnation, the loving parent embraced and
kissed the wayward but now penitent boy, who, overcome by this
undeserved affection, humbly acknowledged his error, and sorrowfully
confessed that he was not worthy to be known as his father's son. It is
noteworthy that in his contrite confession he did not ask to be accepted
as a hired servant as he had resolved to do; the father's joy was too
sacred to be thus marred, he would please his father best by placing
himself unreservedly at that father's disposal. The rough garb of
poverty was discarded for the best robe; a ring was placed on his finger
as a mark of reinstatement; shoes told of restored sonship, not of
employment as a hired servant. The father's glad heart could express
itself only in acts of abundant kindness; a feast was made ready; for
was not the son, once counted as dead now alive? Had not the lost been
found again?

So far the story sustains a relation of close analogy to the two
parables that preceded it in the same discourse; the part following
introduces another important symbolism. No one had complained at the
recovery of the stray sheep nor at the finding of the lost coin; friends
had rejoiced with the finder in each case. But the father's happiness at
the return of the prodigal was interrupted by the grumbling protest of
the elder son. He, on approaching the house, had observed the evidences
of festal joy; and, instead of entering as was his right, had inquired
of one of the servants as to the cause of the un