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. 66 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. 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! Attend to the great leading object of This makes way for the introduction of the divine revelation, to which all refer, to which heroine of this eventful history; and we be-all are subservient, in which all are absorbed come 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, Lumanity, and piety. How eloquent is she 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. her. LECTURE XCIII. And they lift up their voice and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto 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. Scripture as it excels in every thing, so it peculiarly excels in delineating and unfolding the female character, both in respect of the quantity exhibited, and of the delicacy, force, and effect of the design. We have already seen this exemplified, in a variety of instances in the dignified, conjugal attachment and respect, in the matron-like conscious, impatient superiority of Sarahin 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 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 by her, because fondly attached to the memory of their husbands; but their mutual affection rendered a punishment, not a pleasure, by the pressure of poverty and the bitterness of neglect. At length she is roused from the stupefaction of grief by tidings from her country, from her dear native city, and a ray of hope dispels the gloom of her soul. She "hears in the country 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 time 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 apjoy, 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 HeaMoab, 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 scems 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 Which shall we most admire, the geneagain, urging upon them every consideration rosity and disinterestedness of the mother, or that reason, that affection, that prudence could the steadiness, spirit, and resolution of the suggest, to induce them to separate from a daughters? How pleasurable is strife of a wretch so friendless and forlorn, so helpless, certain kind, the strife of good will, of magso hopeless as herself. To suffer alone is now nanimity, of gratitude, of piety, of selfall the consolation she either expects or denial! The language, the sentiments, are seems to wish; the destitute condition of the language and sentiments of nature, they these sisters in affliction, is now her heaviest flow from the heart, and reach the heart, burden. Indeed the situation of these three "And Naomi said unto her too daughters-infemale pilgrims has in it something wonder-law, Go, return each to her mother's house: fully pathetic and interesting. There they the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have are upon the road, on foot, with all the weak-dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord ness, ignorance, timidity, uncertainty, and grant you that ye may find rest, each of you, irresolution of their sex; not knowing which in the house of her husband. Then she way to bend their course, exposed to the kissed them. And they lift up their voice craft, violence, or insult of every one they and wept."* inet; sinking under the recollection of what The good they had endured, shrinking from the appre woman herself admits that * Ruth is 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 cnough 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 Provi say, 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 tarry 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 me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me."* What sweet touches of unsophisticated nature press upon the heart, in perusing this address! beyond the pomp and power of art 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. into a purer, brighter flame; and thus the *Ruth i. 16, 17. herance to rectitude; by modest firmness, abundance, driving me among strangers, exand heart-affecting simplicity; by undissem-posing me to struggle with uncertainty anx bled affection, and unaffected piety. O good- iety, necessity, neglect, and scorn; but my ness, how pure, how sincere, how satisfactory resolution is fixed, none of these things move are the honours which crown thy head, and me; every sacrifice, every loss, every disgrace dilate thy heart! is infinitely more than compensated by having Israel's God for my God." Which leads to observe a It is impossible to tire in contemplating an object so transcendantly excellent. In that fair form all the feminine virtues and graces love to reside. We have pointed out some of them; let us meditate for a moment, on that which is the crown and glory of all the rest. Estimable for her conjugal fidelity, and filial attachment; great in her voluntary renunciation of the world, and patient submission to poverty, hardship, and contempt; how superlatively great, how supremely estimable does she appear, arrayed in the robe of unfeigned piety, and triumphant faith in God! The world may perhaps condemn her for preferring the society, country, and prospects of so poor a woman as Naomi to the friendship of her own kindred, the possessions of her native home, the allurements of present ease and comfort. Had she conferred with flesh and blood, how very different had the decision been! But the same divine principle which caused Moses to "refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;" and which taught him "to esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt," determined this amiable creature to withhraw from the companions of her youth, the protection of her father's house, and the religious worship of her ancestors; and to follow a destitute forlorn widow from country to country, to cast her subsistence upon the care of Providence, and to look for her reward beyond the grave. Observe these distinct qualities of the religious principle by which she was actuated. I. It was deliberate, the result of reflection, comparison, and choice, not the prejudice of education, the determination of self-interest, nor the momentary effect of levity and caprice. Her prejudices, her partialities, her worldly interests were all clearly on the other side. The idolatrous rites of Moab were fascinating to a young mind, not yet beyond a taste for pleasure; the aspect of the religion of Canaan was rather ungainly and forbidding, and to adopt it implied the renunciation of all that the heart naturally holds dear. When she therefore thus solemnly affirms, "Your God shall be my God," it is in effect saying, "I have counted the cost, I know whom I have believed. I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. I have subscribed with my hand to the God of Jacob. Blessed be the day that I came into connexion with an Israelitish family. It has indeed cost me many tears, pierced through my heart with many sorrows, it is banishing me from my dear native clime, from the endearments of parental affection, from ease, honour, and Second feature of Ruth's religious character; it was steady and persevering. It might at first have been mere respect for the opinions and practice of the husband of her youth; the mere decency that suited an adopted daughter of Israel; but this had long ceased to be a motive; had it amounted but to this, it had been buried in the grave of her departed lord; but what was at first complaisance and decency, grows up into inquiry, inquiry produces hesitation, and more serious inquiry, this improves into conviction, and conviction is followed by a de termination not to be moved or shaken, and she continues steadfast to the end. Her constancy, it must be allowed, was put to severe trials. Orpah has gone back, Naomi carries her expostulation up to importunity, I had almost said, to downright violence; the difficulties and hardships of the way were increasing, not diminishing upon her. Had not "the heart been established by grace," so many, such accumulated discouragements, must have subdued the ardour of her spirit, and sent her back after her sister; but she has put her hand to the plough, and must not look back. Observe, she does not attempt to reason, does not oppose argument to argument, but, "being fully persuaded in her own mind," adheres firmly to her point, and argues irresistibly by not arguing at all, and prevails by entreaty. See that your cause be good, my fair friend, persist in it, prosecute it thus, and be assured of the victory. III. Observe finally as Ruth's religious principle was deliberate, was steady and persevering, so it was lively, efficacious, practical. We hear nothing of the prattle of piety, nothing of the violence of a young and a female proselyte, no question of doubtful disputation introduced, about places and modes of worship, about Jerusalem and this mountain, nothing of the religion that floats merely in the head, and bubbles upon the tongue; no, her religion is seen, not heard, it "works by love, it purifies the heart, it overcomes the world." It offers up a grand sacrifice unto God, the body and spirit, affection, and substance, youth, beauty, parentage, the pleasures, and the pride of life. Let me see a single instance of this sort, and I will believe the convert more in earnest, than by exhibiting all the wordy zeal of a thousand polemics. Indeed it is by action that this truly excellent woman expresses all her inward feelings. Her affection to her husband is not heard in |