Connecticut western news., 1897-04-29
DARKNESS AND DAWN
REV. DR. TALMAGs'S SERMON Is FULL OF TIRE BREATH OF THE FIELDS.

of the Attachment of Boaz For Ruth.
 The Uses of Trouble-vaiue of Field
 Cleaning.
 WAsHINeToN, April 25.-The sermon of Dr. Talmage which we send out to- day could not have been prepared by any one not born in the country. It Is full of the breath of the fields The text is Ruth ii, 8, And she went and came and gleaned in the field after the reap CTS, and her hap was to light on part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech."
 The time that Ruth and Naomi ar- rive at Bethlehem is harvest time. It was the custom when sheaf fell from a load in the harvest field for the reapers to refuse to gather 1t up. That was to be left for the poor who might happen to come along that way. If there were handfuls of grain scattered across the field after the main harvest had been reaped, instead of raking 1t, as farmers do now, 1t was, by the custom of the land, left in its place so that the poor, coming along that way, might glean 1t 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 field?"
 Boaz owns large farm, and he goes out to see the reapers gather in the grain. Coming there, right behind the swarthy, sun browned reapers, he be. holds beautiful woman gleaning-a woman more fit to bend to harp or sit upon throne than to stoop among the sheaves. An, that was an eventful dayl
 It was love at first sight. Boaz forms an attachment for the womanly gleaner -an attachment full of undying inter- est to the church of God ill all ages while Ruth, with an ephah, or nearly 8 bushel of barley, goes home to Naomi to tell her the successes and adventures of the day. That Ruth, who left her na- tive land of Moab in darkness, and trav- eled through an undying affection for her mother in law, is in the harvest field of Boaz, is aff1anoed 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 night did there ever dawn so bright morning2
 Two Great Educators.
 I learn in the first place from this subject how trouble develops character. It was bereavement, poverty and exile that developed, illustrated and an- nounced to all ages the sublimity of Ruth's character. That is very unfor- tunate man who has no trouble. It was sorrow that made John Bunyan the bet ter 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 encyclopedias, and Ruth the better daughter-in-law.
 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 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 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 dis coursesl The fact is that trouble is . great educator. You see sometimes . 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 bereavement come to that man, and he sits down at the instru- ment. and you discover the pathos in the first sweep of the keys.
 Misfortune and trials are great edn- cators. A young doctor comes into . siokroom where there is dying child. Perhaps he is very rough in his prescrip- tion 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 years roll on, and there has been one dead in his own house. and now he comes into the sick room, and with fearful eyes he looks at the dying child, and he says, "Oh, how this reminds me of my Charliep Trou- ble, the great educator. Sorrow-I see its touch in the grandest painting, l hear it's tremor in the sweetest song, feel it's power in the mightiest argu- ment.
 Grecian my ythology said that the foun tain of Hippocrene was struck out by the foot of the winged horse Pegasus. 1 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. I see Daniels courage best by the flash of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. 1 see Paul's prowess 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 splashed guillotine and the crack ling fires of martyrdom. It took the per secutions of Marcus Aurelius to develop Polycarp and Justin Martyr. It took all the hostilities against the Scotch Cove nanters and the fury of Lord Olaver house to develop James Renwiok and Andrew Melville and Hugh McKail, the glorious martyrs of Scotch history. It 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 the stars heard and the sea,
 And the sounding aisles of the dim wood
 Rang to the anthems of the free.
 It took all our past national distress es, and 1t takes all our present national sorrows to lift up our nation on that high career where it will march long after the foreign aristocracies that have mocked and tyrannies that have jeered,