elf, the memory of his
home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the _lowest_ class of
servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast,
that he exclaimed, "How many _hired_ servants of my father, have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke.
"I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure his
father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add; "Make me as one of
thy _hired_ servants." If _hired_ servants were the _superior_ class--to
bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that
seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature
_climbs_; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility
sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design
of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he
beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's
face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on
the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears
from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he
sobs aloud, "The lowest place, _the lowest place_, I can abide no
other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against
Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;
make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that _hired_
servants were the _highest_ class, takes from the parable an element of
winning beauty and pathos.

It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that _one_ class
of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other
members of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv.
1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child,
DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." If this
were the _hired_ class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility.
Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by
himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of
all ill-desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts, and set it a
strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.

Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to _each_ class of
the servants, the _bought_ and the _hired_. That those in the former
class, whether Jews or Strange