St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-09-11
lTALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Camp-Meeting Discourse on the
Daughter-in-Law.
The Love of Ruth for Naomi-Five Indis-
pensabIes Which TIL, Faithful Chris
tfan Must Possess In Order to
Live and Die Right.

V.Slt TO tHe historic oiu CaInp-meetiHS az
Grimsby Ont. preached sermon, taking
Cor his subject the beautiful story of Ruth
and Naomi. His text was:
Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return
from following after thee; for whittier thou
goest, will go; and where thou lodgest,
will lodge; thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God, where thou diest will
die, and there will be buried; the Lord do
so to me, aud more also. if aught but death
part thee and me.-Ruth l., TO- II.
Following is DR.. Talmage's sermon:
Famine in Judah. Upon fields distin-
guished for fertility the flight came, and
at the door of princely abodes want
knocked. Turning his back upon his
house and his lands Elimelech took his
wife Naomi and his two sons and started
for the land of Moab, in search of bread.
Getting into Moab his two sons married
idoiators-Ruth the name of one, Orpah
the name of the other Great calamities
came upon that household. Elimelech
died and his two sons, leaving Naomi, the
wife, and the two daug hters law. Poor
Naomi! In strange land and her husband
and two sons dead. She must go back to
Judah. She can not stand it in place
where everything reminded her Of her
sorrow. Just as now, sometimes you see
persons moving from one house to anoth-
er, or from one city to anoth-
er, and you can not understand
it until you find out that it is because
there were associations with a GER
tain place that they could no longer bear.
Naomi must start for the land of Judah;
but how shall she get there? Between
Moab and the place where she would like
to go, there are deserts; there are wild
beaGts ranging the wilderness; there are
savages going up and down, and there is
Ehe awful Dead sea. Well you say, she
"ame over the road once, she can do so
again. All! when she came over the road
before she had the strong arms of her hus
band and her two sons to defend her.
Now they are all gone.
The hour of parting has come, and
Naomi must be separated from her two
daughters claw, Ruth and Orpah. They
we're tenderly attached, these three
mourners. They had bent over the same
sick bed; they had moved in the same
funeral procession; they had wept over
che same grave. There the three mourners
stand talking. Naomi thinks of the time
when she left Judah with prince for her
companion. Then they all think of the
marriage festivities, when Naomi's two
sons were united to these women, who
have now exchanged the wreath of the
bride for the veil of the mourner. Naomi
starts for the land of Judah, and Ruth and
Orpah resolve to go a little way along
with her. They have gone but short dis
lance when Naomi turns around and says
to her daughters-in -law:
go back. There may be days of
brightness yet for you in your native
land. can't bear to take you away from
your home and the homes of your kindred.
am old and troubled. Go not along with
me. The Lord deal gently with you as ye
have dealt with the dead and with me-"
But they persisted in going, and SO the
three travelled on until after awhile Naomi
turns around again and begs them to go
back. Orpah takes the suggestion, and
after sad parting goes away; but Ruth,
grand and glorious Ruth turns her back
upon her home. She says:
II can't bear to let that old mother go
alone. It is my duty to go with her."
And throwing her arms around weeping
Naomi she pours out her soul in the
tenderness, and pathos, and Christian
eloquence of my text:
Entreat me not to leave thee, or TO return
from following after thee for whittier thou
geest, will go; and where thou lodgest
will lodge; thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God; where thou diest will I
die, and there will be buried; the Lord do
20 to me, and more also, if aught but death
cart thee and me.
Five choices Ruth made in that text,
and five choices. must we all make If we
ever want to get to heaven.
1. In the first place, if we want to be-
come Christians we must, like Ruth in the
text, choose the Christians God. Beauti-
full Ruth looked up into the wrinkled face
of Naomi, and said:
Thy God shall be my God.
You see it was a change Of Gods.
Noami's God was Jehovah; Ruth's god
was Chemosh, the divinity of the Moab
ties, whom she had worshiped under the
symbol of black star. Now she comes
out from under that black starred divin-
ity, and takes the Lord in whom there is
no darkness at all; the silver starred
divinity to whom the meteor poured down
In Bethlehem; the sunshiny god of whom
the Psalmist wrote:
The Lord God is sun.
Now Ruth turned away from this god
Chemosh and she took Naomi's God. Who
was thats The God that made the world |
and put you in it. The God that fashioned |
The Heaven and filed it with blissful in |
habitants. The God whose life-t time study |
it has been to make you and all his crea-
lures happy. The God who watched us In |
childhood. and led us through the gaunt-
let of infantile distresses, feeding us when |
we were hungry, pillowing us when we