Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-04-26
DARKNESS AND DAWN
REV. DR.. TAlMAGE'S SERMON IS FULL
OF THE BREATH OF THE FIELDS.

tHe Points q Moral From the Bible Story
OF the Attachment of Boar For Ruth.
The Uses of Trouble-value of Field
Cleaning.
| WASHINGTON, April 25.-The sermon
uf Dr. Talmage which we send out to-
day could not have been prepared by
any one not born in the country. 1t is
full of the breath of the fields. The text
rs Ruth ii, 8, 'And she went and came
iand cleaned in the field after the reap
.ers, 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. 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 custom
of the land, left in it's 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-
west fields to Ruth and Naomi? Naomi
MS 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
4L,0 IN h0
grain. Coming there, right behind the
swarthy, sun Drowned reapers, he be-
holds a beautiful woman gleaning-a
woman more fit to bend to a harp or sit
upon 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 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 ma
tive land of Moab in darkness and trav-
eled through an undying affection for
her mother-in-la is in the harvest
field of Boaz, is affianced to one of the
after time the ancestress of Jesus Christ,
the Lord of glory. Out of SO dark
night Gid there ever dawn so bright a
morning?
Two Great Educators.
I learn in the first place from this
subject how trouble develops character.
1t was bereavement, poverty and exile
that developed, illustrated and an
nounced to all ages the sublimity OF
Ruth's character. That is a very unfor
tunate man who has no trouble 1t 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-;n-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,' lie replied, 1.-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
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 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 III
the first sweep of the keys.
Misfortune and trials are great edu-
Gators. A young doctor comes into a
sickroom where there is dying child.
Perhaps he is very rough in his prescrip-
tion and very rough in his manner and
rough i'll 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-
BILE, the great educator. Sorrow-I see
its touch in the grandest painting, I
hear its tremor in the sweetest song, I
feel its power III the mightiest argu-
ment.
Grecian mythology said that the foun-
tain of Hippocrene was struck out by
the foot of the winged horse Pegasus.
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 shoG
hoof of disaster and calamity. I see
Daniels courage best by the flash Of
furnace I see Paul's
proves best when I find him ON the
laundering ship under the glare of the
- II. LII