Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-08-03

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 bar
vest.
The time that Ruth and Naomi ar
rive at Bethlehem is harvest time. 1t
was the old custom when q sheaf tell
from a load in the harvest field for the
reaper to refuse to gather it up; that
was TO be left for the poor who might
happen to come that way. II there
were handfuls of grain scattered across
the field after the main harvest had
been reaped, instead of raking it up 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 har-
vest 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 fieid|'
BCAz SEES RUTH.
Boaz owns large farm, and he goes
out to see the reapers gather in the
grain. Coming there, right behind the
swarthy. sunbrowned reapers, he be
holds a beautiful woman gleaning-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
an attachment for the womanly cleaner
an attachment full of undying inter
est 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
iourneyed through an undying affec-
ton for her mOther-in-law, is in the
harvest field OF Boaz, is affianced to
one of the best families in Judah, and
becomes in after time the ancestress 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 charac-
ter. 1t was bereavement, poverty and
exile that developed, illustrated and
announced to all ages the summit of
Ruth's character That is a very I'M
fortunate man who has no trouble. 1t
was sorrow that made John Bunyan
the better dreamer, and Dr. Young the
better poet, and O'Connell the better
orator, and Bishop Hall the better
preacher, and Havelock the better
soldier, and Kitto the better encyclo-
pedist, and Ruth the better daughter
in-law
TENDERNESS COMES FROM TROUBLE.
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 sermons9" ''Well, u
he replied, the reason is, our pastor
has never had any trouble. When mis-
fortune comes upon him his style will
be different" After awhile the Lord
took q child out of that pastors house,
and though the pastor was just as bril-
liant as he was before, oh, the warmth,
the tenderness of his discoursesl The
fact is that trouble is a great educator.
You sometimes see a musician sit down
at an instrument, and his execution
is cold and formal and unfeeling The
reason is that all his life he has been
prOspered But let misfortune or be
reavement 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 q sick
room where there is a dying child
Perhaps he is very rough in his prescrip
ton. and very rough in his manner
and rough in the feeling of the pulse,
and rough in his answer to the moth
ers anxious question; but the years
roll on, and there has been one dead
in his own house; and now he come!
into the sickroom, and with fearful eye
he looks at the dying child, and he
says, 'FOh, how this reminds me of my
Charliel" Trouble, the great educator
Sorrow see it's touch in the grandes
painting; Ihear its tremor in the sweet
est song; | feel its power in the might
est argument.
Grecian mythology said that the
fountain of Hippocrene was struck on
by the foot of the winged horse Pega
sus. [ have often noticed in life tina
the brightest and most beautiful foun
tains of Christian comfort and spiritua
life have been struck out by the iroI
| shod hoof of disaster and calamity
see Daniels courage best by the flash O.
| Nebuchadnezzar' furnace. see Paul.
proves best when | find him 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 spIashed guillotine, and the crack
| ling fires of martyrdOm.
! 1t took the prosecutions of Marcus
Aurelius to develop Polycarp and JUS
tin Martyr. 1t took the pope's bull,
and the cardinals curse, and the worlds
anathema to develop Martin Luther.
1t took all the hostilities against the
| Scotch covenanters and the fury OF
Lord Claverhouse to develop James
Renwick and Andrew Melville and
Hugh McKail, the glorious martyrs OF
Scotch history. 1t took the stormy sea,
and the December blast, and the desc
late New England coast, and the wal
whOop of savages to show forth the
proves of the Pilgrim Fathers
When amid the storms they sang,
| And the stars heard, and the sea;
! And the sounding aisles of the dim wood
! Rang to the anthems of the free
THE LIFTING UP OF THE NATION.
1t took all our past national distresses
and it takes all our present natIona
sorrows, to lift up our nation on thai
high career where it will march along
after the foreign despotisms that have
Knocked, and the tyrannies that have
jeered shall be swept down under the
omnipotent wrath of God, who hate:
oppression, and who by the strength O.
his own red right arm will make al
men free. And so it is individually
and in the family, and in the church
and in the world, that through dark
ness and storm and trouble men, WON