While he is thus going onward in the pursuit of pleasure, there comes a famine in the land. The prices of food rise to a fearful extent. His money is exhausted, and he is amazed to find that his friends so kind begin to cool in their affections just in proportion as his means diminish. He finds that, so far from dying for him, their intention is to live upon him till he has nothing left and then reproach him for his extravagance. The friend who begged him to make his house his home, just as though he were in his own father’s house, intimates that times are very hard and every one must look out for himself. Hunger succeeds and rags. He who never had a serious thought before is serious enough now. He who never bestowed a thought upon food or raiment must now find food or perish. In his necessity he resorts to the house of a farmer and with humble tone begs work. He who demanded of his father the property he had never earned a dollar of begs for the meanest employment that may keep him from starving! The farmer tells him that he may go into his fields and feed swine and eat a morsel with the servants in the kitchen. But the servants’ fare is scanty, just sufficient to preserve life. In the morning after taking his morsel, he goes with a heavy heart to his work. What a contrast! He thought his home lonesome; but where and what is he now? All around him the land is scorched, the streams are dry, the trees leafless. He thought it hard to feed cattle; he must now feed hogs and beg for the privilege. Corn is so scarce that the swine can have only the husks, and he is so hungry that he would fain fill himself with the husks that the swine eat and no man gives unto him. Not one of all his former friends upon whom he has spent so much will give him a crust.
He now comes to himself; for the first time in his life he begins to think. He thinks of his kind old father, of his home where there is plenty. He says, “How many servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” He says, “Shall I go home?” Pride whispers: “Go home? How can I look upon my father’s face, on my brother who was always steady and industrious, and the old neighbors? My very looks will tell what I am, and where I have been, and what I have been doing. No, I won’t go home. I can’t go home. I will starve to death first.” But it is much easier to talk about starving than it is to starve. Hunger and poverty are hard masters. Long is the struggle, terrible. At length he decides. “I will go while I have strength enough left to get there. ’I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.’” And before his resolution has time to cool, he sets out on his journey.