He begins by making us feel that whatever follies
the prodigal had committed, he had already been punished for them in
the miseries he had endured. It is not for man to punish with his whip
of scorn one who has already been flaggellated with a whip of scorpions
in the desert places of disgrace and shame. Jesus makes us feel also
that whatever sins might be laid to the charge of the disgraced son,
there is nevertheless in his heart a warmth of feeling of which the
elder brother gives no sign. The boy loves his father, otherwise he
would not have turned to him in his anguish of distress. The elder
brother's attitude to his father is arrogant and harsh; the younger
brother's is humble and tender. Lastly the father himself is revealed
as the embodiment of love. He asks no questions, utters no reproaches,
imposes no conditions; he simply takes his son back, in the rush of his
affection cutting short the boy's pitiful confession, and calling for
shoes and new robes and festal music, as though his son had returned in
dignity and triumph. In the last scene of all, implied rather than
described, the restored prodigal sits at the feast, leaning on his
father's bosom, but the respectable son stands without in a darkness of
his own creation--the darkness which a harsh spirit and an unlovely
temper never fail to create in men of his unhappy temperament.
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