Of the many parables used by Christ Jesus to drive home some fundamental teaching, few, if any, have stronger appeal or are of greater value than the story of the prodigal son. Here in Oriental imagery is depicted the experience of a mortal who, lured by the demands of the flesh and the phantasy of material pleasure, turned from his father's house, with its peace and plenty, to indulgence of the physical senses. He claimed his ancestral heritage of materiality, squandered it in riotous living, and was driven by the ensuing poverty to the lowest type of service, that of a swineherd, and to the coarsest of food. The prodigal did all this.
In the midst of this experience, however, he had come to himself, had awakened to a realization of the misery and want with which he was faced when, in fact, in his father's house there were comfort, plenty, and joy. In the process of coming to himself, two notable changes took place in the prodigal's mentality. First and most important of all was the recognition and acknowledgment that he had done wrong, that his indulgence in the ways of the flesh had been sinful —wholly apart from the ways of life and truth that had prevailed in his father's house. This acknowledgment and recognition of his evil ways, and repentance therefor, was a necessary preliminary to the process of transformation, of regeneration, which turned him again toward his father's house, wherein abode good, truth, loving-kindness, and the spirit of forgiveness.
The prodigal had won a great victory. Evil appeared as a formidable foe. But Truth won. Mrs. Eddy knew and graphically pictured the reluctance of mortal mind to acknowledge its errors, to admit that its course has been sinful and false. On Science and Health, page 450 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," under the significant heading "Touchstone of Science," she writes: "Some people yield slowly to the touch of Truth. Few yield without a struggle, and many are reluctant to acknowledge that they have yielded; but unless this admission is made, evil will boast itself above good." In these words is set forth a preliminary step, absolutely necessary, to the process of transformation by which one enters the Father's house, the kingdom of heaven, spiritual consciousness.
