is a more extensive one--not merely the feelings of
the finder, God in Christ, but besides that, the sensations of the
wanderer himself.

In dealing with this parable, this is the line which we shall adopt.
We shall look at the picture which it draws of--1. God's treatment of
the penitent. 2. God's expostulation with the saint. God's treatment
of the penitent divides itself in this parable into three distinct
epochs. The period of alienation, the period of repentance, and the
circumstances of a penitent reception. We shall consider all these in
turn.

The first truth exhibited in this parable is the alienation of man's
heart from God. Homelessness, distance from our Father--that is man's
state by nature in this world. The youngest son gathered all together
and took his journey into a _far_ country. Brethren, this is the
history of worldliness. It is a state far from God; in other words, it
is a state of homelessness. And now let us ask what that means. To
English hearts it is not necessary to expound elaborately the infinite
meanings which cluster round that blessed expression "home." Home is
the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other.
It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that
mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to
wear in self-defence, and where we pour out the unreserved
communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where
expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of
awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule. Let a man travel where
he will, home is the place to which "his heart untravelled fondly
turns." He is to double all pleasure there. He is there to divide all
pain. A _happy home_ is the single spot of rest which a man has upon
this earth for the cultivation of his noblest sensibilities.

And now my brethren, if that be the description of home, is God's
place of rest your home? Walk abroad and alone by night. That awful
other world in the stillness and the solemn deep of the eternities
above, is it your home? Those graves that lie beneath you, holding in
them the infinite secret, and stamping upon all earthly loveliness the
mark of frailty and change and fleetingness--are those graves the
prospect to which in bright days and dark days you can turn without
dismay? God in his splendours,--dare we feel with Him affectionate and
familiar, so that trial comes soften