tian good-night!

THE INSIGNIFICANT.

"And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the
reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field
belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of
Elimelech."--RUTH ii: 3.

The time that Ruth and Naomi arrive at Bethlehem is harvest-time. It
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 its place, so that the poor, coming along that
way, might glean 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 toil 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 a large farm, and he goes out to see the reapers gather in
the grain. Coming there, right behind the swarthy, sun-browned
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.
Ah, that was an eventful day!

It was love at first sight. Boaz forms an attachment for the womanly
gleaner--an attachment full of undying interest to the Church of God
in all ages; while Ruth, with an ephah, or nearly a bushel of barley,
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
traveled through an undying affection for her mother-in-law, is in the
harvest-field of Boaz, is affianced 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?

I. I learn, in the first place, from this subject how trouble develops
character. It 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. It was
sorrow that made John Bunyan the better dreamer, and Doctor 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
encyclopaed