down one's
spirits as anything I know.

_5 March, Sunday._--In bed all day, with the ancient Persian in
attendance.

* * * * *

[Page Heading: THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIM]

_The Return of the Pilgrim._

This is not a story for Sunday afternoon. It is true for one thing, and
Sunday afternoon stories are not, as a rule, true. They nearly all tell
of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the
Pilgrims, and that is why this parable is not for Sunday afternoon. I
write it because I never knew a true thing yet that was not of use to
someone.

Most of us leave home when we are grown up. The people who never grow up
stop at home. The journey and the outward-bound vision are the signs of
an active mind stirring wholesomely or unwholesomely as the case may be.
The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands
an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and comes back
penitent, as we have heard a thousand million times. The Far Country is
always barren, the husks of swine are the only food to be had, and
bankruptcy is inevitable.

The story has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of
the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its
illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond
of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which
there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God
wot; it gives many a man a wholesome fright, and keeps him at home, and
its note of forgiveness for a wasted life has proved the salvation of
many Prodigals.

But there is another journey, far more often undertaken by the young and
by all those who needs must seek--the brave, the energetic, the good. It
is towards a country distant yet ever near, and it lies much removed
from the Far Country where swine feed. Its minarets stand up against a
clear and cloudless sky, its radiancy shines from afar off. It is set on
a hill, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the
Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carry torches! They
have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and
songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the
path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with
eager feet. Whatever anyone likes to say, it is a much more crowded path
than the old trail towards the pig