Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-06-01
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.
Rev. DR.. Talmage's Discourse at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Trouble Develops and Ennobles Character
The Beauty of Unfaltering Friendship
Path Which Starts Darkly Often Ends
Brightly.
BROOKLYN, May 2O.-The opening hymn
at the Tabernacle service to-day begins
with the words:
More love to thee O Christ,
More love to thee.
After making a running commentary on
some passages of Scripture the Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, u. D., took the text "And
she went, and came, and CLEANED in the
field after the reapers; and her hap was to
light on part of the field belonging unto
Boaz, who was of the kindred Of Elm
elech." Ruth ii, 3. He preached from
these words the following sermon:
The time that Ruth and Naomi arrived
at Bethlehem is harvest time. twas the
custom when sheaf fell from load in
gather it up; that was to be left for the
poor who might happen to come along that
way. If there were handfuls of grain scat
tered aross the field after the main harvest
had been reaped, instead of raking it, as
farmers do now, it was, by the custom of
the land, left in its place, so 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 and feeble
to go out and toll in the sun: and can you
expect that Ruth, the young and the
beautiful, should tan her cheeks and blister
her hands in the harvest feld?'
Boaz owns large firm, and he goes
out to see the reapers gather in the grain.
Coming there, right behind the swarthy,
sun Drowned reapers, he befolds beauti-
ful woman gleaming-a woman more tit TO
bend to harp or sit upon throne than to
stoop among the sheaves. All, that was
an eventful day!
1t was love at first sight. Boaz forms an
attachment for the womanly gleaner-an
attachment full of undyirg interest to the
Church of God in all ages; while Ruth,
with an ephah, or nearly 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 travelled through an undying
affection for her mother.in-law, in the
harvest field of Boaz, is afianced to one of
the best families in Judah, and becomes in
after time the ancestress Of Jesus Christ,
the Lord of glory. Out Of 80 dark night
did there ever dawn so bright a morning?
l learn in the first place from this sub
ject how trouble develops character. It
was bereavement. poverty, and exile that
developed, illustrated, and announced to all
ages the sublimity of Euth's character.
That is very unfortunate man who has no
trouble. 1t was sorrow that made John
Bunyan the better dreamer, and DR.. Young
orator, and Bishop Hall the better
preacher. and Havelock the better soldier,
and Kitto the better encyclopaedia, and
Ruth the better daughter in-law.
l once asked an aged man in regard to
his pastor, who was very brilliant man:
"Why is it that your pastor, so very brilliant,
seems to have SO little heart and tender
ness in his sermens?" We'll" he replied,
"the reason is our pastor has neverhad any
trouble. When misfortune comes upon
him his style will be different" After
while the Lord took child cut of that
pastors house; and though the preacher
was just as brilliant as he was before, oh
the warmth, the tenderness OF his dis
courses. The fact is that trouble is q
great educator. You see sometimes a
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 come to that man, and he
sits down at an instrument, and you dis
cover the pathos in the first sweep of the
keys.
Misfortunes and trials are great educa-
tors. A young doctor comes into sick
room where there is dying child. Per-
haps be is very rough in his prescription,
and very rough in his manner, and rough
in the feeling of the pulse, and rough in
his answer to the mothers anxious ques-
tons; hut years roll on, and there had been
one dead in his house; and now he comes
into the sick room, and with fearful eye he
looks at the dying child, and he says: "Oh,
how this reminds me of my CHARLIE"
Trouble, the great educator. Sorrow,
see its touch in the grandest painting; l
hear its tremor in the sweetest song; feel
its power in the mightiest argument.
Grecian mythology said that the foun-
tain of Hippocrene was struck out by the
foot of the winged horse Pegasus. I have
often noticed in life that the brightest and
most beautiful fountains of Christian COM
fort and spiritual life have been struck out
by the iron shod hoof of disaster and ca
lamity. | see Daniels courage best by the
flash of ACKNOWLEDGMENT furnace. l see
Pauls prowess best when l find him on
the laundering ship under the gale of the
lightning in the breakers of Melita. God
crowns his children amid the bowling of
wild beasts and the chopping of blood
splashed guillotine and the cracking fires
of martyrdom. 1t took the prosecutions
of Marcus Aurelius 10 develop Polycarp
and Justin Martyr. 1t took the worlds
anathema to develop Martin Luther. II
took all the hostilities against the Scotch
Covenanters and the fury of Lord Claver-
house to develop James Renwick, and
Andrew Melville, and Hugh McKail, the
glorious martyrs OF Scotch history. II
took the stormy sea, and the December
blast, and 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 til ar. heard, and the sea: Vs.
| And the sounding aisles of the dim wood
! Rang 10 the anthems of the free.
1t took all our past national distress tt
lift up our nation on that high career where
| it will march along after the foreign arts.
tocracies that have jeered, shall be swept
down under the omnipotent wrath of God
who hates despotism, and who: by the
strength of His own right arm, will make
all men free. And so it is individually,
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.
II. Again, see in my text the
beauty of unfaltering friendship. Ieup-
pose there were plenty of friends TO,
Naomi while she was in prosperity, but Of
| oil hor t,, n,