ut would
return by a certain date.

It was a holiday in the smokey city. Alfred cleaned up over forty
dollars on papers alone. That night he visited Brimstone Corner, a
Methodist Church. No man or boy who ever lived in Pittsburgh but
remembers its location. It was a revival; the church was packed, the
sermon eloquent and it made a deep impression upon Alfred.

The minister read the text as follows: "And he said, A certain man had
two sons; and the younger of them said to the father: 'Father, give me
the portion of goods that falleth to me.' And he divided unto him his
living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together
and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance
with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land and he began to be in want. And he went and joined
himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to
feed swine. And he would feign have filled his belly with the husks that
the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to
himself, he said: 'How many hired servants of my father have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.' I will arise and go to
my father and will say unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as
one of thy hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But
when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and had compassion
and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him,
'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more
worthy to be called thy son.' But the father said to his servants,
'Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand
and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and
let us eat and be merry. For this, my son, was dead and is alive again;
he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry." The preacher
continued:

"Who can say what the causes that led to the young man's leaving the
luxurious home of his father to wander, an outcast, over the earth? The
vagaries of the human mind are beyond our understanding. The prodigal
son may have had illusions; he may have had ambitions. He may have been
induced by illusions born of ambitions to make something of himself
other than a plain farmer's boy. The dangers that lay along his pathway
were not known to him. That he fell in with ev