A sad lack of moral discipline, no doubt! If he had kept
the boy in fear and godliness, if he had tied him down to honest
work, the disaster need never have happened. Yet the old man, who
went so often at sundown, we may think, to the crest of the hill,
from which he could see the long road winding over the plain to the
far-off city, the road by which he had seen his son depart, light-
heartedly and full of fierce joyful impulses, and along which he
was to see the dejected figure, so familiar, so sadly marred,
stumbling home--he is the master-spirit of the sweet and comforting
scene. His heart is full of utter gladness, for the lost is found.
He smiles upon the servants; he bids the household rejoice; he can
hardly, in his simple joy of heart, believe that the froward elder
brother is vexed and displeased; and his words of entreaty that the
brother, too, will enter into the spirit of the hour, are some of
the most pathetic and beautiful ever framed in human speech: "Son,
thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine; it was meet
that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was
dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found.
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