From ‘A Study of Death,’ copyright 1895, by Harper and Brothers

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL

I

Standing at the gate of Birth, it would seem as if it were the vital destination of all things to fly from their source, as if it were the dominant desire of life to enter into limitations.  We might mentally represent to ourselves an essence simple and indivisible that denies itself in diversified manifold existence.  To us, this side the veil, nay, immeshed in innumerable veils that hide from us the Father’s face, this insistence appears to have the stress of urgency, as if the effort of all being, its unceasing travail, were like the beating of the infinite ocean upon the shores of Time; and as if, within the continent of Time, all existence were forever knocking at new gates, seeking, through some as yet untried path of progression, greater complexity, a deeper involvement.  All the children seem to be beseeching the Father to divide unto them His living, none willingly abiding in that Father’s house.  But in reality their will is His will—­they fly, and they are driven, like fledglings from the mother-nest.

II

The story of a solar system, or of any synthesis in time, repeats the parable of the Prodigal Son, in its essential features.  It is a cosmic parable.

The planet is a wanderer (planes), and the individual planetary destiny can be accomplished only through flight from its source.  After all its prodigality it shall sicken and return.

Attributing to the Earth, thus apparently separated from the Sun, some macrocosmic sentience, what must have been her wondering dream, finding herself at once thrust away and securely held, poised between her flight and her bond, and so swinging into a regular orbit about the Sun, while at the same time, in her rotation, turning to him and away from him—­into the light, and into the darkness, forever denying and confessing her lord!  Her emotion must have been one of delight, however mingled with a feeling of timorous awe, since her desire could not have been other than one with her destination.  Despite the distance and the growing coolness she could feel the kinship still; her pulse, though modulated, was still in rhythm with that of the solar heart, and in her bosom were hidden consubstantial fires.  But it was the sense of otherness, of her own distinct individuation, that was mainly being nourished, this sense, moreover, being proper to her destiny; therefore, the signs of her likeness to the Sun were more and more being buried from her view; her fires were veiled by a hardening crust, and her opaqueness stood out against his light.  She had no regret for all she was surrendering, thinking only of her gain, of being clothed upon with a garment showing ever some new fold of surprising beauty and