CHAPTER IX.

Madness-Returning to reason- -Thoughts of home-Reasons for returning to his father's house.

"HE came to himself." Was he a madman before? We speak of one whose reason has returned after a long season of derangement, as of one who has become himself again. Is a careless sinner mad?

Scoffers at religion, who would mock all serious thoughts of God and the soul's salvation, always speak of anxious sinners as if they were losing their senses. You may hear the enemies of Christ making sport of those who begin to be concerned about the future, and,

if

you were to believe them, you would think it altogether unbecoming a sensible person to be anxious on the subject of religion. But learn from the prodigal who is mad; the sinner who begins to be in earnest about the interests of his immortal soul, or the sinner who is thoughtless when a moment hence he may be in the flames of hell?

That man must be mad who stands on the edge of a pit, and is unconcerned when the ground is crumbling beneath his feet. But that man is not mad who flies for his life

when the ground trembles. Were you in a burning house with a friend, and both of you were aware of the danger of being speedily enveloped in flames, which of you would act the part of a madman, the one who rushes to the door to escape, or the one who lies down to sleep?

A young man, in the open field, among a herd of swine, is starving. He has no friends near him to whom he can go for aid. In the depth of his misery, when death stands before him, and hope has failed him, and despair has seized him, he thinks of a house where there is enough to eat, and à friend who would gladly give him relief. Would you have him go, or starve? Was it madness to think of life, when he knew that life could be had if he would but return?

No; he is the man bereft of reason, or the man who abuses the reason God has given him, who lives in the world as if he were to

live here for ever; who knows that he is on the verge of the bottomless pit, and walks unconcerned; whose soul is starving, while the rich bounties of heaven are despised as altogether unworthy of his regard.

Well did the wisest of men once say of sinners, “Madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead." Ecc. 9: 3. Is it not the height of madness to make yourself miserable when you might be happy, to be a beggar when you might be a prince, to die when you might live, to go to hell when you might go to heaven? Is it not madness, that has no equal in the mad-houses of earth, for an immortal being to trifle with eternal realities, reject a proffered crown of glory, despise the love of God in the gift of his Son, trample under foot atoning blood, and when the offers of salvation are urged upon him with all the eloquence of heaven, to plunge headlong, and of his own free-will, into the midst of "everlasting burnings." And that is the madness, O sinner, that now possesses thee, that arms thee with weapons for thy own ruin, that drives thee on toward

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destruction when the door of heaven stands wide open and invites thee to enter and be saved. Thus madly the prodigal fled from his father's house. Thus madly he wandered farther and farther from home, wasting the goods paternal kindness gave him, plunging deeper and deeper into sin, and of consequence into misery, until at last, in the hour of despair, a thought broke upon his bewildered mind like a voice from heaven.

a thought of HOME.

It was

A home, once his, but his no longer. He remembers the parents whose arms once shel tered him, and whose tenderness soothed him in his infant days. He thought of his brother, the companion of his boyhood. He thought of the parental roof, and the couch on which he had slept in peace and security. He remembered his father's table, and as hunger pressed him sorely and the husks mocked his misery, he began to think of the folly of perishing when there was bread enough in his father's house.

Dear reader, do you ever think of home? I mean the home of your childhood and the

scene of your youthful sports and joys. Do you not often think of the parents whose love still winds itself around your heart, and fastens you to the spot where yet they live, or to the more sacred spot where their remains are laid. You may not have been called away from those scenes of endearment, and the cares of a busy world, or the snares of a wicked world, may not have made you an exile from your father's house. But suppose you were in a far country, in a land of strangers, and poverty and sickness had overtaken you. No kind mother is near to minister to your wants; no sister smooths your pillow or drops a tear of pity for your wo. In those long nights of cheerless suffering, would not the memory of home revive with subduing power?

Never shall I forget the thoughts of home that made me water my pillow with tears, when thus among strangers, I once laid down, as I thought, to die. And when I lingered long, and those most dear to me flew, as on wings of love, to my side, O, how easy it seemed to die, with parents to catch the last looks of love, and sisters and brothers to share the sorrows of my last hours,