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tional animosity, represses the rage of the lion, quenches the violence of fire. The fugitive of Beth-lehem-judah finds kindness and protection among inveterate enemies; Daniel sleeps secure amongst the fiercest of the savage tribes; and the three children of the captivity walk unhurt in the midst of the flaming furnace.

We see, at first, nothing but one of those instances which every day occur, of the sad reverses to which individuals, families, states are liable; the downfal and distress of an ancient and reputable house, struggling with penury, and forced into exile; but we soon discover, that the Eternal eye is fixed on a nobler object, that the hand of omnipotence is preparing the materials and laying the foundation of a more magnificent fabric; that infinite wisdom is bringing low the royal house of Beth-lehem, only to restore it with greater splendour.

In the disasters which befall, and the successes which attend certain families and individuals, we behold an apparent partiality of distribution that confounds and overwhelms us. Death enters into that house, passes from couch to couch, spares neither root nor branch; the insatiate fiend never says it is enough. Whatever that poor man attempts, be the scheme ever so judiciously formed, ever so diligently prosecuted, uniformly fails; the winds as they change, the stars in their courses fight against him. The very mistakes of his neighbour turn out prosperously, his sails are always full, his children multiply, his wealth increases, his mountain stands strong. Is God therefore unwise, capricious, partial, or unjust? No, but we are blind, contracted, presumptuous. We can discern, can comprehend only here and there a little fragment of his works, we are gone, before the event has explained itself; it requires the capacity, the eternity of God himself to take in the mighty whole of his plan.

We have before us at once the cure of pride and of despair. Behold, O man of an hundred ancestors, and of an hundred thou- The house of Elimelech exhibits an affectsand acres, behold Elimelech, the son of Abra-ing instance of the inequality we have been ham, poor and despised; the head of the tribe mentioning. The sad account of famine, of of Judah, a stranger in a strange land, exist- banishment, of degradation, of dependence, ing through sufferance, supplied through fo- is at length closed with death. Disease of reign bounty; and remember by what a brit-body, co-operating with distress of mind, protle tenure thy privileges and possessions are held. Consider, child of adversity, whom no man knows, whom no one regards, consider yonder neglected, reduced, extinguished family, and behold from the ashes of the expiring phoenix, an immortal offspring arising, whose flight neither time nor space can limit, and feel thine own importance, and aim only at high things, and trust in omnipotence for the execution of its own eternal purpose.

bably the effect of it, shortens his days, and terminating his own worldly misery, dreadfully aggravates the woes of the unhappy survivors. Wretched mother, left to struggle alone with poverty, solitude, danger, and neglect: far from friends, encompassed with enemies, loaded with the charge of two fatherless children, not more the objects of affection, than the sources of anxiety and care! While Elimelech lived, penury was hardly In a country and among a people where felt as a burden; in exile thou wert always names were not mere arbitrary sounds, but at home; secluded from society, the converconveyed a meaning connected with cha-sation of one still dispelled the gloom. Thy racter, with history, with expectation, those sons afforded only delight, because that deof Elimelech, " my God is king," and of light was participated in, by him who had a his wife Naomi, "the pleasant one," from common interest with you in them but all their peculiar import, must have a refe- is now changed, every load is accumulated rence to certain circumstances in their sevenfold, every comfort is embittered, every history which are not recorded. The former prospect is clouded: the past presents nothing might be dictated by the spirit of prophecy, but regret; the future discloses nothing but and be significant, without the intention of despair. them who imposed, or of him who bore it, of the future greatness to which the family, through the favour of Heaven, should arise, in the person of David, of Solomon, and that long succession of princes which finally centred, and was absorbed, in the person of Christ. David's son; yet David's Lord. The particulars of his own story that have reached us, are too few and too general to admit of our discerning any reference or application of his name to his character, office, or condition: but we know enough of the character and history of Naomi to justify the suitableness of the appellation to her person, dispositions, and final attainments.

She seems to have given up at this period all thoughts of returning to her native country, and, making a virtue of dire necessity, attempts to naturalize her family in the land of Moab, by allying her sons, through marriage, to the inhabitants of the country. The sense of the loss she has sustained gradually yields to the lenient hand of time, and to the sweet hope of seeing the house of her beloved husband built up, and his name revived in the persons of his grandchildren. Alas! what is the hope of man! the flatterer has been only decoying her into a greater depth of wo; her two remaining props sink, one after another, into the dust; all that the eyes desired

is taken away with stroke upon stroke; and, to fill up the measure of a mother's wretchedness, both her sons die childless, and hope expires with them. Now she is a widow indeed, and exhausted nature sinks under the pressure.

It is the opinion of many interpreters, that the premature death of the young men was a judgment from heaven to punish their illegal intermarriage with strange and idolatrous women. It becomes not man to judge; and we know that God executeth only righteous judgment; and in wrath still remembers mercy. Thus in three short lines the sacred historian has delivered a tragic tale that comes home to the bosom of every one that possesses a spark of sensibility. It is a domestic story; it represents scenes which may, which do happen every day. It admonishes every one in how many points he is vulnerable, how defenceless he is against the thunderbolts of Heaven. It awfully displays the evil of sin, and the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. If such be the temporal effects of his vengeance, how bitter must be the cup which his just displeasure mingles for incorrigible offenders, in a state of final retribution! How pleasing to reflect that trials of this sort do not always flow from anger, that they are the wholesome severity of a father, that they aim at producing real good, that they in the issue really "yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness." The darkness of night at length yields to the glorious orb of day, the shadow of death is turned into the morning, and the desolate is as she who hath an husband.

This makes way for the introduction of the heroine of this eventful history; and we become interested in her from the very first moment. The Jewish writers, to heighten our respect for Ruth, perhaps from a pitiful desire to exalt their own ancestry, make her the daughter of a king of Moab, and as they are never timorous in making assertions, or forming conjectures on such occasions, they tell you her father was Eglon, whom Ehud slew. It is hardly probable that a prince of that country would have given his daughter in marriage to a needy adventurer who had banished himself from his country through necessity. But of little importance is it whether she were born a princess or no. Nature has adorned her with qualities such as are not always to be found in the courts of kings; qualities which best adorn high birth, and which ennoble obscurity and indigence; fidelity and attachment; a soul capable of fond respect for departed worth, and living virtue: magnanimity to sacrifice every thing the heart holds dear, to decency, friendship, and religion; magnanimity to encounter, without repining, painful toil, and humiliating dependence, in fulfilling the duties of gratitude, humanity, and piety. How eloquent is she

when she speaks, how great when she says nothing, how transcendantly exalted in all she thinks, speaks, and acts! With what divine art, shall I say, is she introduced in the sacred drama? After we have been melted into pity by the calamities of Naomi's family, and seen the widowed mourner sinking under wave upon wave; and the prospect of progeny, the last darling hope of an Israelitish matron, rudely torn from her, lo an angel in the form of a damsel of Moab, a mourner and a widow like herself, appears to comfort her, and makes her to know by sweet experience that he, that she, has not lost all, who has found a kind and faithful friend. What is the sound of the trumpet, and a long train of mute and splendid harbingers, compared to the simple preparation of unaffected nature! Let us wait her approach in silent expectation; and muse on what is past.

Behold one generation of men goeth and another cometh; one planet arising as another sets, every human advantage balanced by its corresponding inconveniency, every loss compensated by a comfort that grows out of it.

Behold the purpose of the Eternal mind maintaining its ground amidst all the tossings and tempests of this troubled ocean, triumphing over opposition, serving and promoting itself by the wrath of man and the malice of hell, out of darkness rising into lustre, "out of weakness made strong," by the energy of the great first cause, acquiring life, vigour, and prosperity from the extinction of means, from the destruction and death of secondary causes.

Attend to the great leading object of divine revelation, to which all refer, to which all are subservient, in which all are absorbed and lost. I will make mention of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of Moses and the prophets; of Boaz and Ruth; "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me; behold Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia; this man was born there; and of Zion it shall be said, this man was born in her and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, That this man was born there." May our names be written in the Lamb's book of life, among the living in Jerusalem!

The introduction of these personages and events, one after another, were remote steps of the preparation of the gospel of peace. And every person now born into the church of Christ, and every event now taking place in the administration of human affairs, is a little space in the great scale of eternal Providence, and a gradual preparation for the final consummation of all things. Let "thy kingdom come," O God! Let Satan's kingdom be destroyed; let the kingdom of grace be advanced, ourselves and others brought into and preserved in it, and let the kingdom of glory be hastened! Amen!

HISTORY OF RUTH.

LECTURE XCIII.

And they lift up their voice and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.-RUTH i. 14—18.

Female vice and worthlessness are delineated on the sacred page with equal skill, truth, and justice, from the insolence of Hagar, and the treachery of Delilah, down to the implacable vengeance of Herodias, and the insatiate cruelty of her accursed daughter.

THE calm, untumultuous, unglaring scenes | Lapidoth-in the unrelenting firmness, and of private life, afford less abundant matter the daring, enterprising spirit of Jael, the for the pen of the historian, than intrigues wife of Heber. of state, senatorial contention, or the tremendous operations of the tented field, but they supply the moralist and the teacher of religion with more pleasing, more ample, and more generally interesting topics of useful information, and salutary instruction. What princes are, what statesmen meditate, what heroes achieve, is rather an object of curiosity than of utility. They never can become examples to the bulk of mankind. It is when they have descended from their public eminence, when they have retired to their private and domestic station, when the potentate is lost in the man, that they become objects worthy of attention, patterns for imitation, or beacons set up for admonition and caution.

For the same reason the meek, the modest, the noiseless exhibition and exercise of female excellence, occupy a smaller space in the annals of human nature than the noisy, bustling, forensic pursuits and employments of the other sex. But when feminine worth is gently drawn out of the obscurity which it loves, and advantageously placed in the light which it naturally shuns, O how amiable, how irresistible, how attractive it is! A wise and good woman shines, by not seeking to shine; is most eloquent when she is silent, and obtains all her will, by yielding, by submission, by patience, by self-denial.

Three more female portraits are now presented for our inspection, and our improvement; all expressive of characters essentially different, all possessing features of striking resemblance, all exhibiting qualities which create and keep alive an interest, all copies from nature, all pourtrayed by the hand of him who knows what is in man.

We have witnessed the wretchedness and sympathized in the sorrows of Naomi, my pleasant one, reduced from rank and fulness to obscurity and indigence, banished from her country and friends, a stranger in a strange land, robbed of her husband, bereaved of her children; having no protector save Heaven, no hope or refuge but in the peaceful grave. Behold the thrice widowed mourner bowing the head, and hiding the face in silent grief. She is dumb, she opens not her mouth, because the Lord hath done it. The miserable partners of her wo only increase and embitter it. Two young women, like herself widows, childless, comfortless; fondly attached to her, and tenderly beloved Scripture as it excels in every thing, so it by her, because fondly attached to the peculiarly excels in delineating and unfold- memory of their husbands; but their mutual ing the female character, both in respect of affection rendered a punishment, not a pleathe quantity exhibited, and of the delicacy, sure, by the pressure of poverty and the force, and effect of the design. We have bitterness of neglect. At length she is already seen this exemplified, in a variety roused from the stupefaction of grief by of instances in the dignified, conjugal at- tidings from her country, from her dear tachment and respect, in the matron-like native city, and a ray of hope dispels the conscious, impatient superiority of Sarah-gloom of her soul. She "hears in the counin the maternal partiality, eagerness, and address of Rebekah-in the jealous discontent and impatience of Rachel-in the winning condescension, and the melting commiseration of Pharaoh's daughter-in the patriotic ardour, the prophetic elevation, the magisterial dignity of Deborah, the wife of

try of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread.”

In the wisdom and goodness of Providence, there is a healing balm provided for every wound. The lenient hand of tine soothes the troubled soul to peace; the agitation of the mind at last wearies it out, and lulls it

asleep, and its weakness becomes its strength..hension of what might yet be before them: Though in misery we cleave to the love of attempting to comfort each other, and, in life, and having lost our comforts one after that, every one seeking some slender conso another, we are still enabled to look forward lation for herself. Think on the failure of with fond expectation to a new source of bread, on the failure of money, on the ap joy, and when all temporal hope is extin- proaches of night, on the natural terrors and guished, and reluctantly given up, the spirit dangers of darkness, on the savageness of asserts its own immortality, and rests in hope wild beasts, and the more formidable sabeyond the grave. Naomi is reduced to a vageness of wicked men. Think on the unmelancholy, mortifying alternative; of con- kindness and indifference of an unfeeling tinuing a poor, deserted exile in the land of world, and the darker frowns of angry Hea.. Moab, or of returning to Beth-lehem-judah, ven. We are disposed to weep while we stripped of all her wealth, all her glory; to reflect on Jacob, a fugitive from his father's be an object, at best, of pity, perhaps of con- house, composing his head to rest upon a pillow tempt. On this however she resolves, flat- of stone, under the canopy of the open sky; at tering herself that change of place and reflecting on Joseph, torn from his father's change of objects may alleviate her distress. embrace, sold into slavery, cast into a dunThe two young Moabitesses, in uniting geon; but I find here something infinitely themselves to men of Israel, had renounced more deplorable. They were men, flushed their own kindred and country, perhaps their with youthful spirits, with youthful hope: the native gods; and therefore listen with joy to vigour of their minds had not been broken the proposal of their mother-in-law, to return down by the iron hand of affliction, their to Canaan. It is the more pleasing to observe prospects were enlivened with the promises this union of sentiment and affection, that and visions of the Almighty; but these unthe relation in question is seldom found fa- happy wanderers have drunk deep of the cup vourable to cordiality and harmony. It fur- of adversity; their society is worse than nishes a presumptive proof of the goodness solitude, despair hangs over all their future of all the three, and they had indeed a most prospects. Stand still and shed the tear of mournful bond of union among themselves compassion over them, ye daughters of afflucommon loss, common misery: and the heart ence, prosperity, and ease, who start at a seems to have felt and acknowledged the shadow, who scream at the sight of a harmless ties which alliance had formed and the hand mouse, who tremble at the rustling of a leaf of death had rivetted. shaken by the wind; ye who never knew the heart of a stranger, the keen biting of the wind of heaven, the stern aspect of hunger, the surly blow, or scornful look of pride and cruelty. Or rather, weep over them, ye whose wounds are still bleeding, to whom wearisome days and nights have been appointed, who by the experience of misery, have learned to pity and to succour the miserable. May the God of mercy, the friend of the orphan, the judge of the widow, the refuge of the distressed, have mercy upon them, and conduct them in safety to their desired haven.

Behold then the mother and her daughters turning their back on the painfully pleasing scenes of joys and sorrows past, unattended, unprotected, unbefriended, disregarded, as sad a retinue as ever wandered from place to place. They are hardly in motion from their place, when Naomi, penetrated with a lively sense of gratitude for friendship so generous and disinterested, overwhelmed with the prospect of the still greater misery in which these dutiful young women were about to involve themselves, from their love to her, and unwilling to be outdone in kindness, earnestly entreats them to return home again, urging upon them every consideration that reason, that affection, that prudence could suggest, to induce them to separate from a wretch so friendless and forlorn, so helpless, so hopeless as herself. To suffer alone is now all the consolation she either expects or seems to wish; the destitute condition of these sisters in affliction, is now her heaviest burden. Indeed the situation of these three female pilgrims has in it something wonderfully pathetic and interesting. There they are upon the road, on foot, with all the weakness, ignorance, timidity, uncertainty, and irresolution of their sex; not knowing which way to bend their course, exposed to the craft, violence, or insult of every one they met; sinking under the recollection of what they had endured, shrinking from the appre

Which shall we most admire, the generosity and disinterestedness of the mother, or the steadiness, spirit, and resolution of the daughters? How pleasurable is strife of a certain kind, the strife of good will, of magnanimity, of gratitude, of piety, of selfdenial! The language, the sentiments, are the language and sentiments of nature, they flow from the heart, and reach the heart, "And Naomi said unto her too daughters-inlaw, Go, return each to her mother's house: the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them. And they lift up their voice and wept." The good

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woman herself admits that * Ruth i. 8, 9.

who felt and expressed it; composed to the prospect and suffering of solitary anguish, provided her amiable children were restored to the rank, affluence, and comfort which they so well deserved. How poor and contemptible are the contentions for precedency and pre-eminence, the emulation of fortune and dress, the rage of admiration and conquest compared to this! How pleasant is it to see an humble fortune dignified and supported by generosity and greatness of mind!

The touchstone is now applied to the affection of the two sisters, and their characters and merits are finally disclosed. Orpah suf

enough of respect has been paid to filial and conjugal tenderness; she wishes and prays, as a recompence for their kindness to the living, and devotedness to the memory of the dead, more lasting and more auspicious connexions with husbands of their own country. She proposes not, recommends not the affected, constrained, involuntary retirement and sequestration of prudish, squeamish virtue; and they, on their part, assume no unnatural airs of immortal grief; they form no flimsy suspicious vows of undeviating, unalterable attachment; make no clamourous, unmeaning, deceptious protestation of love extinguished, and never to be rekindled, the piti-fers herself to be persuaded; with regret we ful artifice of little minds to flatter themselves, and catch the admiration of others. How much more emphatical the silent, unprotesting reply of Orpah and Ruth! "She kissed them; and they lift up their voice and wept." What charming eloquence is heard, is seen, is felt in those tears! Have these lovely damsels less regard for their departed lords, are they more eager to form new alliances, that they say nothing? I cannot believe it. Noisy grief is quickly over, soon spends itself. Sincerity seldom calls in the aid of exclamation, vehemence, and vows; but dubious, staggering fidelity is glad to support itself with the parade of wo, and the pomp of declamation.

behold her resolution overcome; we behold her separating from her mother-in-law, with the valedictory kiss of peace, and returning to her own country and her gods; and we hear of her no more. But Ruth cleaves to her new choice, unmoved by the example of her sister, or the entreaties of her mother, she persists in her purpose; the desertion of Orpah only knits her heart the faster to her adopted parent, and in words far sweeter than the nightingale's song, she breathes out her unalterable resolution to live and to die with her. How could Naomi find in her heart to make another attempt to shake off so lovely a companion? How delighted must she have been, in yielding the triumph of kindness to a pleader so irresistible. "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."*

Their persevering, determined, unprotesting friendship but endears them the more to their venerable parent, and inclines her the more powerfully to resist their inclination, and prevent the sacrifice which they were disposed to make; and again she has recourse to more earnest and tender expostulation, resolved to offer up a noble sacrifice to maternal tenderness in her turn. "And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye The mother is every way outdone, overgo with me? are there yet any more sons in come, and contends no longer-to persist farmy womb, that they may be your husbands? ther had been cruelty, not friendship: and Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for thus mutual sympathy and deliberate choice I am too old to have an husband. If I should have, under the direction of all-ruling Provisay, I have hope, if I should have a husband dence, formed an union dearer than the ties also to-night, and should also bear sons; of interest, or even the bonds of nature know: would ye terry for them till they were grown? and thus the same breath which extinguishwould ye stay for them from having hus-es the fainter spark, blows up the stronger bands? nay, my daughters: for it grieveth into a purer, brighter flame; and thus the me much for your sakes, that the hand of the God who has all hearts and all events in his Lord is gone out against me."* hand, ever rears a refuge for the miserable, What sweet touches of unsophisticated na-provides a remedy against despair, and exture press upon the heart, in perusing this tracts a precious essence from calamity, which address! beyond the pomp and power of art operates its own cure. "When she saw that to reach. Who is not melted at hearing the undissembled wailings of a good and honest mind, mourning for others, not itself; calmly surrendering its own interest in the joys of life, but anxiously desirous to procure and preserve them for those whom she loved as her own soul; nobly resigning that cordial of cordials, virtuous friendship, when it could not be enjoyed but to the detriment of those

* Ruth i. 11-13.

she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her." And thus Ruth stands without an equal, without a rival. And how has she gained the glorious superiority over a sister? By a lofty tone and an overbearing spirit, by the poisoned whisper, and the dark insinuation; by smoothness of forehead and malignity of heart? No, but by perseverance in well-doing, and ad

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