The parable of the prodigal son, "the pearl of parables," abounds in valuable lessons applicable at all times to the experiences incident to the precious human relationship of parent and child. At no period, probably, has this relationship presented more problems than in our own time. Never have parents more truly needed the helpful lessons this parable affords. Much has been said and written in the effort to draw from it helpful lessons for the wayward child; but perhaps the attitude of the father in the parable has not always been sufficiently emphasized as affording the highest guidance for parents who may be called upon to face such a situation in some milder form.

Jesus, no doubt, had in thought our heavenly Father, and desired to illustrate His enduring loving-kindness toward all of His children; and since the real man exists as the image and likeness of God, the proper attitude for mankind to seek to hold under all circumstances must be that of Godlikeness. Then, any human parent who faces such an experience may well approach the study of this parable with deepest humility and learn from it the perfect method for working out the problem.

In such human experiences it is not unusual for the parent to suffer far more keenly than does the child. Not until the child reaches the extremity of prodigality does his anguish begin to equal that of his parents. In the parable, however, Jesus does not draw such a picture. Here we find the father patiently permitting the son to choose his own course and learn for himself that good can never be found in evil. Then we find him tenderly expecting and awaiting the return of the wayward one. There is no note of disappointment, anger, resentment, hardness, or despair on the part of the father. Here one may say, You are asking the impossible when expecting a parent to maintain such a poise while seeing a child wasting his opportunities, his money, and even his health, recklessly disregarding the consequences.

The important point is that our heavenly Father never beholds His children as prodigal; and so, when one tires of thinking of himself in this light and desires to return to his true state, the readjustment is wholly with the child. To the perfect sense of the Father, the son has always walked in "the paths of righteousness." The teaching of Christian Science brings to an earthly parent this understanding of true existence, enabling him to see that the waywardness is simply an unreal dream expressing the belief in an evil mind capable of experiencing pleasure in, and through, materiality. The awakening from this daydream is just as certain as is the awakening from a sleeping dream; and the readjustment may be, and should be, just as simple as in the case of the sleeping dream.

What, then, of the wasted substance, the immeasurable loss, that apparently accompanies such an experience? When the prodigal worked his way out of the suffering that inevitably results from partaking of the husks of materiality, his supply of good was just as abundant as before. All the teaching of Scripture is plain on this point. "But if the wicked will turn from all his sins . . . and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live." Truly, when one is touched by the Christ, Truth, which opens one's eyes to man's true nature, the Godlikeness from which he cannot depart, one begins at once to enter into life "more abundantly," even as Jesus promised. The result is the same, whether one has ignorantly or wickedly wandered from this true sense of life, and whether the wandering has been for a longer or a shorter period. In either case the impoverished state is wholly a mental condition which yields to the true sense of Life as God, made manifest in holiness, harmony, and abundance of good.

This parable reveals that it is not inevitable that the father suffer with the child; moreover, it implies that the attitude of the father is instrumental in bringing the child back to a wholesome state of right thinking. To ask a human parent to admit that his own harmony is not dependent upon the well-being of his children may seem to be asking too much; and yet this must be the first step in the solution of such a problem. Is it not this subtle idolatry which mortal mind brings into all of our human relationships that makes for bitterness where there should be only sweetness, for bondage and restriction where there should be true freedom and spontaneity?

The parent needs to learn the true sense of Life as God, in whom all good is found to be permanent, inexhaustible, and indestructible, coming from unchanging divine Principle. Without this knowledge, the parent himself is in some degree a prodigal. To be wasteful is to be prodigal. Was not the so-called exemplary son, who had remained at home, rebuked by the wise father for his failure to recognize and to use God's gifts of unselfishness, patience, tenderness, forgiveness, and compassion? To be barren of the qualities of divine Love, unmindful and wasteful of the gracious opportunities for reflecting the divine nature, is to be a cheerless prodigal; for, as Mrs. Eddy declares in her poem "Love" (Poems, p. 7), "Love alone is Life."

We cannot always immediately and entirely heal a situation that involves another, but we can and should always master it in so far as it claims to disturb our own harmony. It is possible for the parent who is solving this problem to relieve the waiting period of much of its anxiety and anguish if he will grasp it as an opportunity to prove that his joy, peace, hope, and courage are of God, and so cannot be taken from him by any person, circumstance, or condition. Through his own demonstration he will thus come to appreciate these familiar words of Scripture: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning."

How can any individual have consumed in past years the good that God holds in store with which to meet every need of to-day? Growing in this knowledge that holiness, health, and abundance of good are spiritual, and are daily renewed by the infinite omnipresent intelligence that gives and maintains life, the parent will lessen his own suffering, and will be in a position to render the best service to the child in teaching him, by precept and example, that substance is not in matter to be wasted. Thus God may be glorified throughout the most trying experience.

May all parents who are grappling with this problem, through a systematic study and application of the simple scientific truths taught in this parable, acquire an understanding of God's abundant and loving care and protection that will enable them with joyous confidence to make daily use of the "Mother's Evening Prayer" (Poems, pp. 4, 5) given to us by our faithful Leader. Only a mother who had endured and overcome the fears, sorrows, and anxieties that mortal mind attaches to parenthood could have given to the world so comprehensive a prayer, flawless in its humility, and yet so gloriously triumphant.