The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-08-22
WE ARE ALL CLEANERS.
sDR. TALMAeE's SERMON ON THE
MEETING OF BoAZ AND RUTH.

-+s'--' 49, ~ S~Te~- fN'"0 - 49,
Discourse Especially Appropriate to the
season of the Harvest Time-It Includes
sp Exhsrtation to All Regarding the
Duty Of Life
GLENwooD, Colo, Aug. "A sermon,
retiolent with the breath of the vast har-
vest fields of the west, indicates that DR..
Talmage has found in the scenes through
which he has been travelling and in his
present surroundings, suggestions of Cos
pei lessons. His text is taken from Ruth
ii, 3. And she went and came and CLEANED
In the field after the reapers; and her hap
was TO lght.on part of the field belong
ing unto Boaz. who was of the kindred of
Elimelech.''
Within a few weeks have been in North
Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New
York, Ohio, Michigan, Canada, Indiana,
Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and they are
one great harvest field, and no season can
be more enchanting in any country than
the season of harvest.
The time that Ruth and Naomi arrive
at Bethlehem is harvest time. 1t was the
old custom when a-sheaf fell from a
load in the harvest field for the reapers
to refuse to gather it up; that was to be
left for the poor who might happen to
come that way. If there were handfuls of
grain scattered across 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 it's 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
har OH aIyof nd hlicfar- IC in fhn
harvest fieldf%
Boaz owns 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 beauti-
ful woman gleaning-a woman more fit to
bend to harp or sit upon throne than to
stoop among the sheaves All, that was
an eventful dayi
: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.
1t was love at first sight. Boaz forms an
attachment for the womanly gleaner-an
attachment full of undying 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 journeyed through an un-
dying affection for her mother-in law, is in
the harvest field of Boaz, is affianced to
one of the best families in Judah, and be-
comes in after time the ancestress of Jesus
Christ, the Lord of Gloryl Out of so dark
night did there ever dawn SO bright a
morning?
learn in the first place from this sub
isct how trouble develops character. It
was Bereavement, poverty and exile that
developed, illustrated and announced to
all ages the sublimity of Ruth's character.
That is a very unfortunate man who has
no trouble. 1t was sorrow that made John
Bunynn the better dreamer, and DR.. Young
the better poet, and O'Connell the better
orator, and Bishop Hall the better preach
er, and Havelock the better soldier, and
Kitto the better encyclopedias, and Ruth
the better daughter-in-law.
THE VALUE OF TROUBLE.
l once asked an aged man in regard to
his pastor, who was very brilliant man,
''Why is it that your pastor, so very bril-
liant, seems to have SO little tenderness in
his sermons?" ''Well,' he replied, 'the
reason is our pastor has never had any
trouble. When misfortune comes upon him
his style will be different" After awhile
the Lord took si child out of that PASTORS
house, and though the preacher was Just
as brilliant as he was before, oh, the
warmth, the tenderness of his discourses
The fact is that trouble is a great edu-
ssrcator. You see sometimes a musician sit
down at an instrument, and his execution
reason is that all his life he has been pros
pered. But let misfortune or bereavement
come to that man, and he sits down at the
instrument, and you discover the pathos
in the first sweep of the keys. Misfortune
and trials are great educators.
A young doctor comes into sickroon
where there is dying child. Perhaps h'
is very rough in his prescription, and verJ
rough in his manner, and rough in the
feeling of the pulse, and rough in his an
swer to the mothers anxious question, bu
the years roll on and there has been on
dead in his own house, and now he come
into the sickroom, and with fearful eye h
looks at the dying child and he says, ''Oh
how this reminds me of my Charliel'
Trouble, the great educatori Sorrow
see it's tonch in the grandest painting;
hear it's tremor in the sweetest song; fee
it's power in the mightiest argument.
Grecian mythology said that the foun
tain of Hippocrene was struck out by tn
foot of the winged horse, Pegasus. hav
often noticed in life that the brightest an
most beautiful fountains of Christian com
fort and spiritual life have been struck ou
by the iron shod hoof of disaster and ca
lamity. see Daniels courage best by th
flash of NebuchadneZzar's furnace. sc
Paul's prowess best when l find him OF
the laundering ship under the glare of t b
lightning in the breakers of Melita. Go
crowns ms chlldren amid Jne hoWnn8
wild beasts and the chopping of bloc
splashed guillotine and the cracking fire
of martyrdom.
II took the prosecutions of Marcus Aur'
lius to develop Polycarp and Justin Ma
tyr. 1t took the pope's bull, and the card
nails curse, and the worlds anathema
develop Martin Luther. 1t took all tt
hostilities against the Scotch Covenants
and the fury of Lord Claverhouse to d
velop James Renwick, and Andrew Me
vile. and Hugh McKail, the glorious ma
tyrs of Scotch history 1t took slle storm