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"And when he came to himself." Then he had run away from himself. Precisely. He had not only run away from his father, and his family, and his home; but he had run away from himself, made escape from the voice of reason and of conscience, from his better nature, from all that constituted him a man. No doubt he thought it a very jolly life. Every desire was gratified; every passion had its festival of pleasure. But, of course, this could not last long. If you unhook the pendulum of a clock, the works will go fast and merrily, but they will soon run down. Presently his money was spent; his capacity for pleasure blunted; his character gone; and then the reaction came. The man was famishing. It was not only food he wanted, but the hunger of home was upon him, the yearning for sympathy, and respect, and love; and this brought him to his senses; the prodigal "came to himself." What is it for a young man to come to himself? In common everyday life the expression is variously used, but always denotes that the person has come to better judgment, or to a fuller use of his faculties, than before. I need not say, however, that the expression on the lips of our Divine Lord has a broader and more serious meaning. A man may be perfectly calm in temper, clear in head, and vigorous in body, and yet never have really "come to himself." He may never have apprehended where his real manhood lies. There is a great deal that we have in common with the lower animals: and, whilst you keep to that plane — so long as you live merely for your baser appetites and passions — so long as all you do is simply to sleep, and walk, and eat, and drink, and toil because you must toil, you have not yet come to yourselves, as reasonable, moral, and spiritual beings. For there are mainly three things in which man is distinguished from the brutes; and it is by these, and not by what he has in common with them, that his life should be inspired and his actions governed. I say that a man truly comes to himself only when the grand motors of his conduct are reason, conscience, and the indwelling Spirit of God. When is it generally that a man comes to himself? Ah I let this story tell. When he gets into trouble. When he "has spent all," and begins to be in want, and "no man gives unto him." I don't mean to say that it is only under such conditions. Thank God, no. There have been men sitting here, with every earthly thing to make them contented, and God has made this pulpit a bow from which He has shot an arrow straight to the centre of their heart, and the arrow was never pulled out till they could call Christ their own. Your sister wrote you a serious letter, and dropped it into yon village post-office far away; it was moistened with tears, and perfumed with prayers; and when you read it you clean broke down and fell on your knees; and since that hour you have been another man. The delicious memory of those Sabbath evenings in your country home, ay, maybe twenty years ago, when in the gloaming (for the candles were scarcely needed) you all gathered round, and old father put on his spectacles, and opened the big well-worn Bible, and mother had the youngest on her knee, and you all read verse by verse, and said your catechism, and then sung a psalm together; I say, the memory of this has chastened you amid the follies of this great city, and made you thirst for purer streams than the giddy world can yield. But, as a rule, it is by some trouble or sorrow that God brings a man to himself. Many a man has "come to himself " under the blow of some crushing bereavement. Yes; all the sermons in the world would not move him; all our arguments failed to make an impression. But one day there came to him a stealthy preacher without notes, and that pale preacher was Death; and when he saw his bonnie little sister lying cold in her coffin, or the turf laid smoothly over the grave that contained his precious mother, he could stand it no longer; he said, "From this hour my treasure and my heart shall be in heaven." And we have had young men here who, like this youth in the parable, never came to themselves till they were in want. You were out of a situation; you could find nothing to do; all your testimonials failed to get you an opening. Some of your friends treated you, as you thought, shabbily. You had letters blowing you up for being unfortunate. You had spent all, and no one gave unto you. Men who used to shake your hand so tightly that your knuckles ached, now gave you but the coldest nod. How next week's lodging was to be paid you could not see. And then, only then, in the bitterness of your extremity, you flung yourself upon God, and found that you had a Father and a Friend above. Oh, how many never find this out till the day of sorrow comes! A good, pious man met a poor ragged urchin in the street, and, putting his hand on his head, said, "My little man, when your father and your mother forsake you, who will take you up?" And what, think you, was the wee laddie's answer? "The perlice, sir."

(J. T. Davidson, D. D.)

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KJV: And he said, A certain man had two sons:

WEB: He said, "A certain man had two sons.