THE SON, NOT THE SWINEHERD

REUBEN POGSON.

And when he came to himself.—Luke, 15:17.

In working out one's problems the parables of Jesus are found to be an inexhaustible mine of wealth. New lights, delicate tints, infinite tones of color are revealed to the patient seeker. One mistake which even the honest beginner in Christian Science is likely to make, can be corrected by a study of the parable of the prodigal son. The mistake consists in trying to bring the Father's house into the field where the swine feed, and trying to clothe the swineherd with the purple robe, with rings on his hands and shoes on his feet, that he may be brought into the banqueting hall to be recognized as the long-lost son. This is not the method in the parable. After his downfall the most important thing that the prodigal did was this, that "he came to himself; that is, the rioter, debauchee, wage-slave, swineherd state of consciousness had been sufficiently destroyed by its own self-imposed suffering to allow the true son to appear. It was this awakened state of consciousness and not the swineherd which said, "I will arise and go to my father." He did not turn for confirmation of his hopeful remembrances of his Father's house to the swine, and ask them their views upon the subject, whether they believed there was such a being as a Father who possessed a harmonious home. Their testimony would have been based on the evidence of their swine sense of existence, and they would have replied in effect that he was mad; swine they were, swineherd was he, their bellies had to be filled and he had to find the necessary husks—"Don't dream, hustle along for more husks—if we die your occupation is gone and you die too. Royal robes! Shoes and rings! nay, naked you came to this field and naked you will depart. Purple apparel indeed!" Do we not often make the mistake of expecting the swinish material thoughts to substantiate the truths of Spirit, physical science to scaffold the structure of Divine Science? Do not the animal appetites clamor for more husks under the threat of death to all who rebel against their tyranny?

We can no more be healed of our sin and sickness whilst clinging to material consciousness than the prodigal could have experienced the Father's forgiveness and manifestation of love if he had stayed and tended swine. Let us arise and go to the Father,—not stay to argue with the swine, not dwell in physical sense, but in the metaphysical, above-physical sense, then we will forget those "things that are behind" and reach forth to those which are before, and we shall apprehend even as did the son, but not the swineherd. These two never mingled; it was only as the sonship was lost sight of that the rioter appeared, and it was only as this false state recognized its own misery and nothingness that the son reappeared, but the two conditions never touched each other. As one appeared the other correspondingly disappeared; there was ever an impassable gulf fixed between them.

In the past years when the question came, "Where art thou?" too often we have had to answer, "Feeding swine!" but this will cease as man's true ego goes to the Father; when we escape from this mortal state in a scientific way. Remember the swineherd never had a father; his seeming existence was only attendant upon sin. When sin was forsaken and repented of and the son was happy in his Father's house, where was the swineherd?

Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, p. 476, "Mortals are not fallen children of God. They never had a perfect state of being, which may subsequently be regained. They were, from the beginning of mortal history, 'conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity.'" The mistake of theology has been in trying to make darkness light, to turn black into white, and mortals into immortals; these are impossibilities. The true man is already perfect, the mortal man is always imperfect, a concept to be cast out. Its seeming substantiality must be dissolved into its elementary "mist that went up from the face of the earth [nothingness]" to be dispersed by the winds of Truth. "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him;" and said, "This thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

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