February 23

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

PSALM CVII. 5.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. — LUKE xv. 14.

HOW graphically our Lord portrays human experience! Every turn in this most simple and yet most marvellous of all his wondrous parables delineates some phase of practical truth. When the prodigal had spent all that he called his own, then arose the famine.

Possessed of wealth, surrounded by affluence, the thought of want had never presented itself. Soon, however, he discovered the exceeding deceitfulness of sin. It not only palls on the taste, but destroys, alienates, and produces irremediable want where before had existed profligate abundance.

What words can depict the hunger of the soul! The figure of the poor outcast, envious even of the swine that he herded, is unequalled in its power to set forth the unutterable misery of the soul when bankrupt in truth and love and all that really sustains life.

Note well that the famine was in that land. O soul, ahungered, needy, and despairing, in thy native land want never comes! Only because thou hast turned thy back on thy Father's house and hast wandered beyond his domain, in the forbidden territory of lust and sin, has thy patrimony failed thee and want consumed thee. In that home which thou didst so lightly abandon, there is unfailing plenty and room for all.

John Howland

Thou who homeless, sole, forlorn, Long hast borne the proud world's scorn, Long hast roamed the barren waste, Weary pilgrim, hither haste.

ANNA L. BARBAULD.