T H E T H E P I L 'R I M P R E S S. z:

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2 T H E L OIN FATH ER AMBROSE BY W. W ERNON I T H E P I L R I M P R E S S BOSTON NEW YOR CH I CAO z:

3 COP Y R I H T B Y L U TH E R n. C AR Y T H E - P L I M P T O N O P R E S S O R W O O D O H A S S O U O S O A. u

4 TO TH E SANCTI FYI N MEMORY OF WILLIAM THAYER SMITH ME SOMETI DEAN OF TH E MEDI LEE CAL SCHOOL OF DARTMOUTH COL

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6 THE LOING FATHER

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8 THE LOIN FATHER And he said A cer tain man had two sons : And of the younger said to hi them s father Father give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days son after the younger gathered all together and took his ourney into a country and far wasted hi sub there s wi th liv stance riotous ing. 9

9 And when had he s p ent all a there arose mighty famine in that land and he began to in be want. And and he went oined himself to a ci t i of country zen that and nto he sent him 1 hi to feed s fields swine. And would fain he filled hi belly have s wi th the husks that the did and no swine eat : man unto gave him. And when he came to himself he said H ow many hi red ser s of my vants father bread enough and have [ 1 0 ]

10 to s and p I erish are p wi th hunger I will and go arise to my and will father say unto him Father I x have sinned against heaven and before thee And no am more worthy to called thy be son make me as one of thy hired servants. And and he arose came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off hi s and father saw him had com assion and p ran and fell on his neck and ki ssed him. [ I I ]

11 And son said the unto him Father I sinned have against heaven and thy in and no sight am more worthy to called thy be son. But the father said to hi s servants Bring forth the best robe and p u i hi and t t on m p ut a ring on hi hand and s on shoes his feet : And bring hi ther the fatted calf and kill i t and and let us eat be m erry : thi my son For s was dead and i again s alive and i he was lost s [ 1 2 ]

12 found. And they be gan to be merry. Now son his elder in field and was the : as he came and drew nigh to the house he heard music and d an cing. And called of he one and asked the servants wha t thes e th i ngs meant. And he said unto hi m Th y brother i s come and thy father hath killed the fatted calf because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry [ I 3 ]

13 and would go in not : th h i e r efor e cam e s and father out i n treated hi m. And answering he said to his father Lo these many years do I th n i s e rve e e e ther transgressed I any at thy command time and thou ment : yet never gavest me a kid that I might make m erry wi th my fri ends : But as soon as thi s thy son was come which hath devoured thy living wi th harlots thouhast killed for him the fatted calf. [ I 4 ]

14 And he said unto him Son thou art ever wi th me and all that l i have s thine. It was meet that we should merry make and glad thi be : for s thy dead brother was and i s alive again and was lost and i s found. Luke 1 5 :

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16 THE LOING FATHER HERE is nothing that we so much desire as the rend of the veil that lies between us and ourselves and the veil that lies i n g between us and our God. There is nothing save the record of Pas sion week that this earth possesses that has so much power to rend them as this story ofthe prodigal. Through this fifteenth chapter of Luke millions of the human race have entered the holy of holies and have knelt in it thankful and unreproved. They have come out of sin and despair out of bitter ness and hardness and doubt to this simple court of the nations and after they have crossed it they have gone on the audi into ence- room of God as simply as though it were the sitting- room [ I 7 ]

17 at home. For it has made them conscious of a self they had never realized a self that is at home With God. What a simple thing this story When God prepared this is. royal way to lead Him men to self He built not out of i t rainbows and clouds and sunset- musical tones and tones but semi- out of human W ords. And from these He chose the very simplest. There is no preciseness spun fin of phrase either of legalist or of philosopher there is no lofty flight of eloquence subtle no literary delicacies royal forms no of These are all laid address. aside compassionately but firmly folded up and put out of sight. e- God constructed this When main avenue to Himself He did not unlock a study or set a a man problem or give him a fort to storm he simply placed him before the Window of home and [ 1 8 ]

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19 boy who was hard though daily touched by love makes these lives solemn and sacred for us. And it is this love this com monest of all things on earth this love which does not even have a holy object to exalt it and to make it transplendent it is this love that shows us what man and God is. it needed Jesus to show But us its greatness and to teach us to revere it. No one had ever denied that father had loved a a worthless son but no one unless it was had ever dared to Hosea say that it was right it indeed was generally suspected that pure veness was sign of a i nd ul 1 gent weakness some of us even suspect it Jesus does not ar still. gue he simply paints and leaves it to us whether to hang the pic ture on the line in the gallery or put it in corner out of a sight. That he knew he was not utter

20 commonplace in depicting m a the g beauty of this love is very plain then there would not have been two sons the prodigal would have been As a enough. matter of fact the world had two methods of treating a sinner the way of the elder brother and the way of the father in this of tale the home and it was quite an open question as to which was right. Or perhaps it was hardly open the Pharisees had almost closed it the world was all but on the point of applauding the elder brother. There was a good deal to be said on that side it was hardly just to kill the best calf for the worst boy he cer had not deserved calf and tai nl a feast y and the best robe and gold a rings it seemed to be reward ing debauchery. There is just as much to be said on that side now only everybody l s ashamed to say it no one wants to be seen de

21 fending justice what is it that has thus amazingly stopped men s mouths and has settled the mat ter This story and Calvary. For see how wonderful this story is and how completely final. Jesus does t wo things. First he paints the two attitudes to a re or at least to a disgusted p entan t sinner so that they may be looked at together the one saying to the outcast We will welcome you when you make restitution but not before the other asking him no questions and showering honors upon him. He paints the two detached from each other yet close together and in then the second place with absolute truth to nature be r e p r e s ent: t/ze one a ttitude é y a ér at/zer a nd t/ze And humanity took that pic ture when the painter was dead and hung it not on the line but in a separate room which in

22 from that day to this every suc ce ed in g painter of the soul has tarried many an hour. That was the end of the religion of the law. Since then we call the treat ment of the elder brother insist ing on exact justice unnatural quite forgetting what it is that we have Since then outlawed. say of the father hastening to we kiss a son home from squander ing his estate That is love that is natural that is right. So Jesus has revealed humanity to itself. What used to be regarded as the foolish failing of weak has men come to be recognized as the highest right of the normal h u This parable has man heart. taken away the veil that hid us from ourselves. There is in the no application story nothing is said of God this is a story of home why has it religious significance Because [ 2 3 ]

23 of the inevitable perception that no attitude that is right on earth can be wrong in heaven. When Jesus revealed in this story the supremacy of father s love in a dealing with sinners he took away not only the veil between us and our hearts but also the veil between us and This God. simple story has convinced man kind that a man who totters under the fearful consciousness of squandered life must be met a not by judge but by a a father. It has taught us to which im ulse to commit the hegemony of the soul it has shown us that love sits deepest and must sit sovereign in the human heart T H EREFORE God is love. it has shown us that That which is the highest attitude toward sin must be the attitude of God. I hope it is not sacrilegious to ask the question : How did Jesus know What led h i m to the [ 2 4 ]

24 painting of this pic ure that by the universal appeal t of its ex q ui site art has settled what the wise men had so long been disputing He may have imagined the story or he may have seen it. eithe case the story is in a But cr ation of r Let us Jesus e soul. suppose that he saw It is one it. thing to run out and kiss your boy returning with the wretched impress of dissipation upon him it is quite another to see the Spirit of God pass as the lips meet. What was it that made Jesus recognize in the incident he may well have seen the ulti mate truth about soul man th of e Why did he not pass it by simply as a casual occurrence Why did he not condemn it as senile partiality and the evidence of a weak sense of morality Why not Beca use r y a m nimre fi ate a nd dr a nk wit/z p a n/{ca ns a nd sinners. He knew how he felt [ 2 5 ]

25 when acchaeus after seeing him changed the whole course of his life. He knew how he felt when the harlot poured out her costly ointment on his feet instead of on her face and limbs. He knew how he felt as Mary Magdalene stretched out her hand toward purity. His feeling in these great moments was that of the father in the parable and not of the And he trusted brother. it. Or it may be that Jesus never saw the scene he here depicts. that more likely case it is his In joy over Magdalene over ac chaeus over many an unknown sinner disgusted with that sin gave the colors which he in dipped his brush as he painted the figure of the this In father. also it was a painting supposition from life but from his own. And he was painting from life also as he put the canvas the on other figure dark and sharply I 2 6 ]

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27 Jesus. The story is no mere detached illustration it is the projection of the Spirit of Jesus into speech. The holiest of earth s Old religions has re treated before into the back i t ground where the elder brother hides his sharp and unlovely fea tures from the joy of the feast. With conscious authority Jesus revealed to men the secret of their souls because he had found it written so learly in His own c and also because He believed that what He found written there He would also find written in the heart Jesus trusted his Of od. own heart rather than the tables of the law though they were written with the finger of God. It was not that they were not written by God but that God could write more and could write more clearly his heart than upon upon any other surface in the world. I 2 8 ]

28 The Father L ov1 n g And yet because it was a human heart that Jesus revealed to be the heart of God we have had continual confirmations in our own experience of the truth ofhis gospel. At the least move ment of our souls from sin to righteousness we have been aware of deep and controlling a joy. Either eye to eye or in vision we have seen those whom we have loved best with welcoming a smile upon their The birds lips. have seemed to sing for us and the heart has been glad with a gladness to which it had no right. Coming straight from sins it i ts has been unable to think of Jesus in any other attitude than Chr1 st of gracious This that welcome. joy overpowering and erasing sin- that springs up immediately in the sinful heart that has stepped toward God matches and com p l the joy in the of em ents heart Jesus as he was moved with com

29 passion and stepped toward the sinner to draw him His to side. And that joy out of the depths of sin has an authority about it that the strictest moralist seeks in to Thatjoy vain overthrow. ex p e ri at the crises oflife fresh enc ed from the despair of sin ex p eri e n ced anew whenever we have the strength given us to move o ut in a. of selfishness toward Christ simple deed of service is the most life- giving and therefore the most real thing that we have ever known It can be nothing else than the Spirit of God. And this simple story has so led us not only to the profound est problem of Christian thought but to the depth of Christian ex p e ri Our sense of security ence. older phrase our salvation in is the deposit of our which j oy lies not works of right in e ousn ess which we have done [ 3 0 ]

30 but in the of our compassion beloved in the welcome from our saints that which Jesus in has revealed to us to be the love of God. Nothin in brin g our hands we l g Sim p y to the Cross we clin g and the grace which the Cross symbolizes and reveals. life is made not from Ou r wit but from thm and wi from It is not to ours above. boast but to give We thanks. have not rewarded but res been cued. We are not our own we belong to our All rescuers. things are ours but we are Christ s and Christ is God s. And so our soul belonging to the rescuers must itself do rescue The only salvation it work. needs to think of is the salvation of others having saved our d o we may well afford to take oul s our eyes from it. This is not [ 3 1 ]

31 reckless. Remember the words of our Lord Jesus how he said He that would save his soul shall lose it but he that loseth his soul for my sake the same shall save it. Christianity is not self- culture it consists in love others for God and for for men. That man lives most who loves most likeness to Christ is best estimated in kindness to men the greatest saint is the man who loves the most men and women and We need prayer children. and knowledge and sacrifice and self- control and contrition but above all we need love. [ 3 2 ]