The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-04-30
UNPAILING FRIENDS.
Showing How the Attachment Of Bosx for
Ruth was Full Of UndyiDg Interest to the
Church Of God In All Ages-Darkness
and Daylight.

Showing How the Attachment Of Bosx for
Ruth was Full Of Undying Interest to the
Church Of God In All Ages-Darkness
and Daylight.
The sermon Of DR.. Talmage which we
sent out today could not nave been pre-
pared by any one not born in the country.
1t Is full of the breath Of the fields. The
text is Ruth IT,, B, And Sc went and
came and gladened in the field after the
reapers. and her hap was TO light on a
part of field belonging unto Boaz, who
was Of the kindred of Elimelech."
The time that Ruth and Naomi arrive
at Bethlehem is harvest time. 1t was the
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 along
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 GUS
tom of the land left in its ulace, 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 her
| cheeks and blister her hands in the harry
est 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 brown reapers he beholds a beautiful
woman gleaning-a woman more fit to
bend to a 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 CLEANER
an attachment full of undying interest to
the church of God in all ages, while Ruth,
with an ephah, or nearly a 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 Travelled, through an I'M
dying affection for her mother-in-law, is
in the harvest field of Boaz, is afianced
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?
THE USE OF TROUBLE
1 learn, in the first place, from this sub
| ject how trouble develops character. 1t
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
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 encyclopedia, and
Ruth the better daughter-in-law.
| I once asked an aged man in regard to
his pastor, who was a 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
emit" After a while the Lord took a child
out of that pastors house, and. though
the preacher was just as brilliant as he
| was before, oh, the warmth, the tender
ness of his discourse! The fact is that
| trouble is a great educator. You see some
times a musician sit down at an instru-
| ment, and his execution is cold and for
NAL and unfeeling. The reason isthat all
| his life he has been prospered. But let mis-
fortune 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 educa-
tors. A young doctor comes into a sick
room where there is a dying child. Per-
haps 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 anx-
ious question. But years roll on and there
| has been one dead in his own house, 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 it's touch in the
grandest painting; I hear it's tremor in the
sweetest song; 1 feel it's power in the
mightieSt argument.
Grecian mythology said that the foun-
tain of Hippocrene was struck out by the
foot of the winged horse Pegasus. I 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 dis
aster and calamity. l see Daniels cour-
| age best by the flash of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
furnace. L see Paul's prowess best when
l find him on the laundering ship under
the glare of the lightning in the break
ers of Melita. God crowns his children
amid the bowling of wild beasts and the
%chopping of blood splashed guillitine and
the cracking fires of martyrdom. 1t took
49, - o~a,- ro1;, -
develop Polycarp and Justin Martyr. 1t
took all the hostilities against the Scotch
Covenanters and the fury of Lord Claver-
house to develop James Renwick and An
drew Melville and Hugh McKail, the glo-
rious martyrs of Scotch history. 1t took
the stormy sea and the December blast
the warhoop 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.
1t took all our past national distresses,
and it takes all our present national sor-
rows to lift up our nation on that high
career where it will march long after the
foreign ariStOcracieS that have Knocked
and t~yrannies that have jeered shall be
swept down under the omnipotent wrath
the strength of his own red right arm,
will make all men free. And so it is in
dividually, and In the family, and In the
church., and in the world, that, though
drakness and storm and trouble. men, wo-
men, churches, nations, are developed.
THE BEAUTY OF FRIENDSHIP. .
Again, I seee in my text the beauty OF
unfaltering friendship. I suppose there
were plenty Of friends for Naomi while
she was in prosperity, but of all her &C
QuaintanceS how many were willing to
trudge off with her toward Judah when
she had to make that lonely journey?
One. the heroine of my text One. abso-
lutely one. 1 suppose when Naomi's hus-
band was living, and they had plenty Of
money, and all things went we'll, they
had a great many callers, but I suppose
that after her hubbard died, and her
property went, and she got old and poor,
she was not troubled very much with
callers. All the birds that sung in the
bower while the sun shone have gone to
their nests, now the night has fallen.
Oh. these beautiful sunfiowers that
Espread out their color in the morning
hour, But they are always asleep when
the sun is going down! Job had plenty
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