The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-05-08
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Lessons From the Beautiful Story
of Ruth and Boar.
How Trouble Serves 20 Develop Characts'
Beauty of Unfaitering Friendship
Paths Leading From Dark
ness to Light.

this week. Is Is based on the text:
And she went, and came, and CLEANED In tn
field after the reapers; and her hap was :
light on n part Of the field belonging unto Boa
who was OF the kindred Of Elimelech-Rutf
IL, 4
The time that Ruth and Naomi m
rive at Bethlehem is harvest time. l
was the custom when a shcaf fell from
load in the harvest field for the reap
ers to refuse to gather it up; that wa
TO be left for the poor who might hap
pen to come along that way. Ii there
were handfuls of grain scattered across
the field after the main harvest ha6
been reaped. instead of raking 1T, al
farmers do now, it was, by the custom
of the land, left in its place. so thai
the poor, coming along halfway 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 field?" ...
Boaz owns a large farm, and he goes
out to see the reapers gather in the
grain. Coming there, right behind the
swarthy, Drowned 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!
1t was love at first sight. Boaz forms
an attachment for the womanly CLEAN
er-an attachment full of undying in
terest to the church of God in all ages;
while Ruth, with an ephah, or nearly a
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
Travelled through an undying affection
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 night did there ever dawn SO
bright 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 sublimity of
Ruth's character. That is a very un-
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
and Havelock the better sol
der, and Kitto the better encyclope-
dist, and Ruth the better daughter-in-
law. c y
Misfortune and trials are great edu-
Gators. A young doctor comes into
sick room where there is a dying child.
Perhaps he is very rough in his pre-
scription, and very rough in his man
per, and rough in the feeling of the
PIE, and rough in his answer to the
mothers anxious question:; but years
rolls on, and there has been one dead
in his own 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 grand
Est painting; hear its trelnor in the
sweetest song: feel its power in the
mightiest argument.
1t took all our past national dis
dresses, and it takes all our present ma
tional sorrows to lift up our nation on
that high career where il will march
long after the foreign aristocracies
that have Knocked and tyrannies that
have jecred, shall be swept down under
the omniputent wrath of God. who
hates despotism, and who. by the
of His own red right arm,
will make all men free. And SO it is
and in the family. and in
The church, and in the world. that
darkness and storm and trou-
bic men, women, churches. nations are
developed. d.
Again. see in my text the beauty
Of unfaltering friendship. | suppose
there were plenty of friends for Naomi
while she was in prosperity; hut of all
her acquaintances, how many were
willing to trudge off with her toward
Judah when she had to make that
onely journey. One..-the heroine OF
ny text. One-absolutely one. sup
pose when Naomi's husband was liv-
ng, and they had plenty of money.
md all things went well, they had a
great many callers; but suppose that
after her husband died, and her prop
,rty went, and she got old and poor,
The was not troubled very much with
,allers. All the birds that sung In the
power while the sun shone have gone
% their nests, now the night has fall
m.
Oh. these beautiful sunflowers that
spread out their color in the morning
,our! But they are always asleep when
he sun is going down! job had plenty
# friends when he was the richest man
n Uz: but when his property went and
he trials came, then there were none
70 much that pestered as Eliphaz the
and Bildad, the Shuttle, and
,ophar, the Naamathite.
Life often seems to be mere game,
where the successful player pulls down
II the other men into his own lap.
,et suspicious arise about mans char
cter, and he becomes like bank in q
anic, and all the imputatIons rush on
i'm and break down in day that char
cter which in dine time xyould have