The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-04-23

the Holy Land, so giaring are their
geographical plumbers. This pastoral
of Ruth and Naomi accords with its
setting like q stream with its banks.
The Three Widows.
is that of the family of Naomi. Eli
melech and his two sons had died in
Moab, the latter having married girls
of the neighborhoed. The three
women we're left widows. Their main
stays had gone, in a land and social
system which made no provisions fer
self-supporting women. Naomi could
go home to her Bethlehem kindred,
and her daughters could remain and
marry again, among the men of Moab.
Young women who have not yet
learned life talg airily about 'inde-
pendence" and careers" but every
mature woman, whether married or
single, knows that Gods plan for
woman, Is a helpmeet to a man and
as hemenaker for a family, is the
only satisfactory one. pathetic pic
ture are the three widows on the edge
of Moab. looking across the Jordan
Valley toward Canaan.
Naturally, Naomfs heart yearned
for the old home, for the village
where she had been borne forth with
music and rejoicing as bride. There
were all her memories OF her happy
early married life, and of her babies
and her boys. There might be more
OF prosperity in Meab; but her
hungry heart was homesick for the
land of her husband and OF her own
family and of her God. So she set
forth, aceempa MED by her tive daugh-
ters-in-laW.
1t is an oriental fashion. which I
have frequently experienced, te ac-
company a guest a short distance on
his way. So the two dauehters-in-
a a II
the hour of parting came, preba bly,
as they reached the head of one of the
defiles down to the Jordan. Orpha
returned to her people, but Ruth, for
loves sake, made the great renuncia-
ton. and resolved to leave her people,
her home and language, her religion,
i and become an alien in strange land.
Her affection and loyalty passionately
burst forth in words that are one of
the most beautiful of literary classics:
"And Ruth said. Entreat me not
to leave thee, and to return from
following after thee; for whittier
thou goest, I will go; and where
thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy pee
pie shall be nay people, and thy
God my God: where thou diest, will
I die. and there will I be buried;
Jehovah do so to me, and more
also, If aught but death part thee
and me-"
Entering a Royal Line.
Such is the character of cur daily
decisions that we never know which
holds our destiny. Little did Ruth
dream that her fidelity to Naomi
would thrust her, as an immortal fig
ure, into the royal line of the Chosen
People, and make her an ancestress
of great King David, and of "David's
Greater Son" We cannot tell what
God has in store for us.
"If only we strive to be pure aud true,
To each of us will come an hour,
When the tree of life shall burst inte
flower
And rain at our feet a glorious dover
OF something grander than ever we knew.
We can almost hear the hum of the
swift spread of small-town gossip in
Bethlehem, when Noami returned
with her Moabite daughter-in-law.
The record depicts the scene in q few
vivid strokes. At once the woman had
which has saved many bereaved one
from breoding over grief. Ruth be-
came a cleaner in the harvest field.
following the reapers. as Is still the
practice today in the same neighbor-
hood, as myself saw last harvest.
Thus it came about that the beauti-
full Moabitess became known to Boar,
a prosperous kinsman of her husband
and he took her to wife, SO that she
became the mother of OPhed, who was
the father of Jesse, whose son was
King David, whose greatest Scion was
the Messiah Himself. And all because
Ruth was true to her nobler nature!