The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1888-05-31
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Educational Influences of Sor.
row and Misfortune.
The Beautiful story of Ruth and Bosz
Woven Into "A sermon on the Chas-
tening Influences Of God
Sent Affections.

Kew i. DcN ltt IalDa%c tOOE ior inc
subject of u recent sermon in the Brook
lyn Tabernacle the story OF Ruth and
Boaz, drawing thcrcfrom "a lesson of the
influence OF incidents on human lives.
His text was:
And she went, and came. and cleaned in the
field after the rcapcrs and her hap was to
ght on part Of the field belonging unto
Boaz, wEo was OF the kindred of EImeiech.-
Ruth H.. 2.
The time that Ruth and Naomi arrived
at Bethlehem it was harvest time. 1t was
the custom when a shcaf fell from load
III the harvest field for the reapcrs to re-
fuse 10 gather it up: that was to be left
for the poor who might happen to come
along that way. If there were hGndfulS
of grain scattered across the field after
the main harvest had been rcapcd, in
stead Of rakiHg it, as farmers do now, it
was, by the custom oI the land, left in its
place, 50 that the poor, coming along that
way, might CLEAN it and get their bread.
But, you say:
"What is the use Of all these harvest
fields to Ruth and Naomi? Naomi is too
old ard feeble to go out and toll in the
sun; aud can you expect that Ruth, the
young and the beautiful, should tan her
cheeks and blister her haads in the har-
vest ficld>"
BoaZ owns a large farm, and he goes out
TO see the reapers gather in the grain.
Coming there, right behind the swarthy,
sun Drowned reapers, he beholds a beau-
tiful woman gleaning-a woman more fit
to bend 10 u harp or sit upon throne
than to stoop among the sheaves. All, that
was an eventtul day
1t was love at first sight. Boaz forms
an attachment for tho womanly cleaner
an attachment full of uudying interest to
the Church Of God in all ages; while Ruth,
with an ephah, or nearly Il bushel, OF bar
ley, goes home to Naomi to tell her the
successes and adventures of the day. That
Ruth, who left her native land of Moab in
darkness. and toilcd. through an undy-
ing affectiuu.for her mothcr-in law, in the
harvest tield of Boaz, is afiianced to one
of the best families IL Judah, and becomes
in after-time the ancestrcss of Jesus
Christ, The Lord of glory. Out Of so dark
a night did there ever dawn so bright a
morning?
learn, in the first place, from this
subject, how trouble develops character.
1t was bereavement. poverty and exile
that developed, illustrated and announced
to all ages the sublimity Of Ruth's charac-
ter. That is very unfortunate man who
has no trouble. Il was sorrow that made
John BuuyaH the better dreamer, and DR..
Young the better poet, and O'CUnncll the
hitter orator, and Bishop Hall the better
preacher, and HaYcloch the better soldier,
and Kitto the better Encyclopedias, and
Ruth the better daughter-in-l#w.
/ once asked an aged man in regard to
his pastor. who was a very brilliant man:
"Why is it that your pastor, so very
brilliant, seems to have so little heart and
tenderness in his scrmons:"
"Well," he replied, "thc reason is our
pastor has never had any trouble. When
misfortunes comes upon him, his style will
be different"
After awhile the Lord took a child out
of that pastors house, and though the
preacher was just rs brilliant as he was
before, oh, the warmth, the tenderness of
his discourses. The fact is that trouble is
great educator. You see sometimes Il
musician sit down at an instrument, and
his execution is cold and formal and un-
feeling. The reason is that all his life he
has been prospered. But let misfortune
or bereavement como to that man, and
he sits down to an instrument, and YOU
discover the pathos in the first sweep of
the KEYS.
Misfortune and trials are great educa-
tors. \ young doctor comes into a sick
room where there is a dying child. Per-
haps he is very rough in his pres cription,
and very rough in his manner, and rough
in the feeling of the pulse, and rough in
his answer to the mothers anxious ques-
ton; but years roll on and thore has been
one dead in his own house; and now he
comes into the sick-room, and with tear
full eye he looks at the dying child, and
says:
"Oh. how this reminds me of my Char .
lie" Trouble, the great educator. SOr-
row, sec its touch in the grandest paint
ing; | hear its tremor in the sweetest
song; feel its power in the mightiest ar
gument.
Grecian mythology said that the fount-
ain of Hipprocrene was struck out by the
foot of the winged horse Pegasus. have
often noticed in life that the brightest and
most beautiful fountains of Christian
comfort and spiritual life have been struck
out by the iron-shod hoof of disaster and
calamity. | see Daniels courage best by
the flash of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace.
on the laundering ship under the glare of
the lightning in the breakers of Melita.
God crowns His children amid the howl
ing of wild beasts and the chopping Of
blood -splashed guillotine and the crack
ling fires Of martyrdom. 1t took the per-
aecutions of Marcus Aurelius TO develop
Polycarp and Justin Martyr. 1t took the
worlds anathema to develop Martin
I l.. n h.
the Scotch Covenanters and the fury of
Lord ClaverhOuse to develop James Rem
wick, and Andrew Melville, and Hugh
McKail, the glorious martyrs of Scotch
history. 1t took the stormy sea, and the
December blast, aud the desolate New
England coast, and the war-whoop of
savages, to show forth the prowesS of the
Pilgrim Fathers.
When amid the storms they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding asles of the dim wood
Rang TO the anthems OF the free.
1t took all our past National distresses
to lift up our Nation on that high career
where it will march along after the for
eign aristocr&cies that have Knocked and
the tyrannies that have jeered, shall be
swept down under the omnipotent wrath
OF UOu, WHO mates ueSpotlSln, anu WHO,
by the strength of His own red right arm,
will make all men free. And SO it is ih-
dividually, and in the family, and in the
church, and in the world, that through
darkness and storm and trouble men,
women, churches, nations are developed.
again, see in my text the beauty of
unfaltering friendship. ! suppose there
vera plenty of friends for Naomi while
she was in prosperity, but of all her
acquaintances how many were willing to
trudge off with her toward Judea, when
she had to make that lionel lv tourney? One