102

SERMON VII.

RUTH I. 14-17.

And they lifted 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, Intreat 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. God. Where thou diest, will I die,

and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

THE great-grandmother of David, king of Israel, as his subjects well knew, had been originally a Gentile idolater. In order to account for this fact, so little creditable to his pedigree; in order to tell by what means she, who had been an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenants of promise," became "graffed into

66

the good olive tree "of the stock of Israel," this short and affecting history was written.

But, independently of that peculiar object, the book of Ruth was composed, like all the other Scriptures, "for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." It is a Family history-written, without fear or favour, by the impartial pen of Divine Inspiration: and so little is there of actual variety in human life, that, even if no names had been mentioned in it, we should have felt assured that the story was authentic.

There are four points, more especially, to which I would call your attention, in the chapter before us. It is a picture of Family Sorrows, of Family Errors, of Family Attachments, and of Family Mercies. Now, do not these four things make up the annals of almost every family with which you áre acquainted? There is not a family but what is distinguished by several of them; and many a family has them all. First, here are

I. FAMILY SORROWS.

1. Want is one of them. In the "land flowing with milk and honey," an Israelite, of some property, is brought into difficulties by a famine.And with how many families is this an habitual source of distress! It is a common saying, that 'bread is the staff of life;' but the staff is broken, from time to time. Either the state of the seasons, as in this case, diminishes the supply; or the

poverty of the consumer places it beyond his reach. Nor is this accidental-but a part of God's dealings with his fallen world. "In the sweat of thy face," it is written, "shalt thou eat bread:" the utmost exertion shall be required for thy daily sustenance; and even that shall sometimes scarcely suffice. Do any think themselves above the reach of this universal sentence? Is any one saying to his soul," Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry?" Let him know, that nothing is more common than for the Lord to confound such vain confidences. Your place, for its fertility, may be called "Bethlehem "-the house of bread; your freehold may be secured to you and your heirs for ever;' yet what will be its value, should the Lord "command his clouds that they rain no rain upon it?" In ways the most unexpected and unforeseen," riches surely make to themselves wings and flee away:" and they that have "trusted" in them, pierce themselves through with

66

2. Separation is another of those sorrows, to which the family of man is subject.-What can be more beautiful, than the sight of a compact and united domestic circle? The younger members growing up under the same roof, in undivided harmony and love-the parents laying themselves out for the continuance and improvement of that affection! Such a "cord," we are sometimes ready

to think, "will not soon be broken." But the tide of life, as it runs on, at length bursts its boundary. If not in consequence of misfortunes, as in the case before us, yet through the natural course of human events, the different members of the most united family become separated, and too often alienated, each from the other. The petty sorrows of school-boy separation may be smiled at: yet they are at once the type and the beginning of that disunion, which maturity seldom fails to bring along with it. The time always seems to come too soon, in which we are made to feel, that there are friends" who stick closer than a brother." Labour as you will to keep up the family feeling, the effort will be found too laborious, when, as it often happens, one part continues still to dwell "in Bethlehem-Judah," and the other is gone far away from the friends of his youth into a land of strangers.

Elimelech, however, thought to escape this affliction; for though the friends of his youth remained behind, he took with him all the members of his own household.-Vain security! Even thither he is pursued by other family sorrows, which come to all alike.

3. Death, "the last enemy," and the most. terrific, sooner or later shews his pale face, and demands admission. If he has been long in coming, the confusion and dismay on his arrival are overpowering. But sometimes his visits are fre

quent; and he seems determined to beat down a whole family, almost at a blow. Our Saviour himself looked with compassion on such a scene, when 66 a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." But what is the scene here before us! Ten years ago, a man and his wife, with their two sons, escaped (as they thought) from the land of sorrows, into a country of plenty: and how many of that family are left now? The father is gone: one of the sons has followed him: the other lives not long after: and the poor widow remains behind in her loneliness.

-Are there no families here present, who could tell a tale like this? Is not the same thing, under different modifications as to age, or circumstance, or frequency, acting over again before our eyes continually? How often, within these three weeks, have families of your acquaintance heard the mournful repetition of- earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!'

But we must look deeper into this history: otherwise it will be a foolish lesson that our family chastisements will teach us--the lesson of discontent, and murmuring against the Lord. Behold, secondly, a picture of

II. FAMILY ERRORS-in which, probably, some of those sorrows originated.

Elimelech and his family were guilty of two grievous errors. The first was,