The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-08-14
FALMAGE'S SERMON.
He breaches to an Immense
Throng In the Silver State.
The Beautiful Story of Ruth Is the Sub
1sct 81 tie ItissvrseAthe Lessons
ID cshtaiM Psfhted OFT ard


ai acempmeeting, near there, at a plac'
called Greenwood Springs. The ser
mon was listened to attentiyely by al
immense audience. His text Is taker
from Ruth Ii, 3: "And she went ant
CLEANED in the field after the reapers
and her hap was to light on a part o
the field belonging Unto Boaz who wa:
Of the kindred of Elimeleeh,"
Within few weeks have been In
North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylva
mia, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Cana
da. Indiana. Illinois, Kentucky, Miss
ouri, and they are one great harvest
field. and no field can be itiore enchant
Ing In any country than the season of
harvest.
The time that Ruth and Naomi ar.
rived at Bethlehem is harvest time.
Il was the custom when a sheaf fell
from load in the harvest field for the
tespers to refuse to gather 1t lip; that
was to be left for the poor who might
happen to come that way. If there
were handfils 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 its place, so that the
poor, coming along that way; might
CLEAN it and get their bread.
But, yoii say, What lie 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 field?" 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 beautiful
woman gleening-a woman more fit to
bend to harp or sit upon a 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 undying interest to the church of
God in all ages; while Ruth. with an
ephah, or nearly bushel of barley 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
undying affection for her mother-in-law,
is in the harvest field of Boaz, is aft
snced to one of the best families in
Judah, and becomes in aftertime the
sncestress of Jesus Christ, the Lord of
glory Out of so dark night did there
ever dawn so bright morning?
learn, in the first place, from this
subject how trouble developes charac-
ter. 1t was bereavement, poverty and
exile that developed, illustrated and
Rtith's character. That is very Tin
fortunate man who has no trouble. 1t
was sorrow that made John Bunyan the
better dreamer, and DIR. Young the
better poet, and O'Connell the better
orator, and Bishop Hall the better
preacher, and Havelock the better SOL
dier, and Kitto the better encyclope-
dist, and Ruth the better daughter-in
law.
1 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
tenderness in his sermons?' "Well -.
he replied, ''the reason is, our pastor
has never had any trouble. When mis-
fortune comes upon him, his style will
be different" After while the Lord
took child out of that pastors house,
and though the preacher was just as
brilliant as he was before. o, the
warmth, the tenderness of his dis
courses. The fact is that trouble is a
great educator. You see sometimes a
musician sit down at an instrument, and
his execution is cold and formal and I'M
feeling. The reason is that all his life
has been prosperous. But let misfOr-
tune or bereavement come to that man,
and he sits down at the in
strumeut, and you discover
the pathos in the first sweep of
the keys. Misfortune and trials are
great educators. A young doctor comes
into sick room where there there is a
dying child. Perhaps he 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 question: but
the years roll on, and there has been
one dead in his own house; now he
comes into the sick room, and with tear
full eye he looks at the dying child, and
he saws, 20. how this reminds me of
my Charliem Trouble, the great edu-
Gator! Sorrow see its touch in the
greatest painting: hear its tremor in
the sweetest song; | feel its power in
the mightiest argument Grecian my
thology said that the fountain of Hip |
pocrene was struck out by the foot of
the winged horse, Pegasus. l have
often noticed in life that the brightest !
and most beautiful fountains of Chris |
ian comfort and spiritual life have been
struck out by the hoof of disaster and |
calamity.
/ see Daniels courage best by the |
fash of Nebuchadnezzars furnace. I 4
see Paul's proves best when l find him
on the laundering ship under the glare |
Of the lightning in the breakers OF Me- |
lita. God crowns His children amid |
the bowling of wild beasts and the
chopping of blood splashed guillotine
and the cracking fires of martyrdom.
Il took the prosecutions of Marcus Au-
relius to develop Polycarp and Justin
Martyr. 1t took the pope's bull and the
cardinals curse and the worlds anathe-
ma TO develop Martin Luther. 1t took
Bill the hostilities against the Scotch
to develop James Rem
wick and Andrew Melville and Hugh l
McKail, the glorious martyrs of Scotch
1t took the stormy sea and
he December blast and the desolate
New England coast and the war ships
If savages to show forth the proves of
he Pilgrim fathers
When amid the storm they sang
And the stars heard. and the sea:
Ana the 5 un ing aisles Of the dim wood
Rang to the anthems OF the free.
It took all our past national distress
8, and it takes all our present national
orrows to lift up our nation on that
Ugh career where il will march along
.fter the foreign deSPotisms that have
nocked, and the tyrannies that have