The fifteenth chapter of Luke is a story of the heart; a story of David, a story which is ever new to us all, for to a large extent it brings to our remembrance many things in our own life. It is a beautiful story; the epitome of a life struggle,—the result of ignorance and inexperience. A whole chapter is devoted to the story. The first ten verses are a preface necessary to round it out.
Believing that things seen were the real; that the pleasures of life were only to be derived through the avenues of the senses; that success in life consisted in the acquisition of earth riches and honor such as the world esteems, the prodigal son departs from his father, and goes away to a far country. This departure, this change of his belief, was a radical change. The characteristic of thoroughness is the material that moves mountains. It makes a man hot or cold; cold in trespass and sins, or alive and warm in truth and love.
Descending into the depths of materiality, finding that the statements of the senses were false from the beginning, he came to himself through the logic of comparison, the logic of facts.
