CHAPTER V.

MOTHER-IN-LAW-DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.

NAOMI AND RUTH.

We grew together in wind and rain;
We shared the pleasures and shared the pain;
I would have died for her, and she,

I knew, would have done the same for me-
Mother and I!

AND HE SAID, WHO ART THOU? AND SHE ANSWERED, I AM

IT is curious to observe how customs and habits change with the flight of time. We find the whole order of society different in the days of Ruth from that we saw in the times of Sarah and Rebekah. When we descend a little farther, we shall discover still other phases of domestic and religious life, differing still from that which existed in the days of Ruth. Yet each arrangement had its merits, and in shifting the curtain, we have not always made an improvement.

Our subject now is, "The Life and Times of

Ruth," in which we shall have an occasion to glance at some singular social customs, and to contemplate a character intensely beautiful and majestically simple. There lived, it seems, in the town of Bethlehem, an old man named Elimelech. He had a wife, whose name was Naomi, and two sons, Mahlon and Chilon. A famine spread over the promised land, and the Jewish nation was perishing for bread. Unable to find the means of subsistence in his own country, this old man took his wife and two sons, and moved across the line into Moab. The journey was not a long nor a hard one. He had no goods to transport, no heavy encumbrances to retard his progress, and he was soon settled in a new country, with new neighbors. The two sons married in Moab, and from all we can learn, made excellent choice. They lived very happily with their wives, and at length followed their father, who did not live long after he became a dweller in Moab, to the grave. As was natural, the heart of Naomi yearned for her old home. The husband and sons who had accompanied her to Moab were dead, and though all were kind to her, she felt that she was among strangers, and her heart longed to wander over the fields of Bethlehem, and listen to the plaintive songs of Judah's daughters. She visited the grave of her husband and

children for the last time, and turned away forever from the spot where rested in undreaming sleep those precious forms. Her daughters-in-law went with her, comforting her heart, and holding up her steps. It was an affecting sight, to see that mother, with two young and beautiful women leading her back to the land of her nativity and the city of her fathers. As they went on, we may imagine that the people of Moab came out and blessed them; that the grave and the gay had some words of cheer for that afflicted and anxious group. But as they went on, Naomi, who seems to have been gifted with a beautiful habit of forgetting her own good in the welfare of others, reflected upon the injustice of taking these two young women from their own land and friends, and drawing them to a strange people, having strange customs and strange habits. So she advised them to return. "I have no sons for you to marry," she said; "I have no home to which I can take you; I have no fortune to bestow upon Go back, therefore, and find you homes and husbands among the people of Moab."

you.

It cannot be supposed that Naomi did not wish these daughters to go with her; had they both refused to return to Moab, it would have given her inexpressible joy. But she consulted their pleasure, and not her own, and she was willing to

be a childless widow all her days rather than do what would be for the injury of her children. The conduct of the two young ladies gives us an insight into their characters. It is likely that they loved Naomi ardently. The devotion of Orpah was as pure as that of Ruth, and as great. But the exhibitions of natural character on the part of these two persons were strikingly varied. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, and went back to Moab. The reasoning of Naomi struck her forcibly, and she bade the aged woman "Good by," and sought a home in her own land, among her own people. What became of her the sacred record does not tell us. Whether she was again married; whether she relapsed into idolatry; whether she prospered after the separation, we know not. While the whole course of Ruth is marked out before us, the life of Orpah relapses into oblivion. The Scripture record concerning the other sister is, "But Ruth clave unto her." As I said, we do not know that the love of Ruth was any greater towards Naomi than that of Orpah, but her character was more perfectly developed. She had stronger principle, and was better able to sink herself in her benevolent sympathies for others. To all Naomi's gentle expostulations she only 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 after history of Ruth is quite romantic, and those who love fiction will find fiction itself surpassed in this truthful reality. The mother and daughter went on to Bethlehem; and as they drew near, the whole city came out to welcome them, with surprise. "Is this Naomi?" they said, as they saw her and her daughter. She replied, "Call me not Naomi. That signifies ful

ness

completeness. But call me Mara, for the hand of the Lord has been upon me; I went out full, and have returned empty." The conduct of the people of Bethlehem shows us the sacred estimation in which Naomi was held. Had she been a woman who had no heart to sympathize in the woes of others, no hand to relieve the distressed, no voice to cheer the fallen, or warn the erring, she would not have been thus received. We have also a beautiful picture of the primitive order of society, in contrast with the cold, unfeeling heartlessness of the present age, when the soul-absorbing principle seems to be, not to make others happy, but to get, grasp, and keep. "Can we not fancy," asks one," the whole city flocking to look upon the travellers, to discover if indeed the ru