as it were by accident.  The book itself is taken up with the most simple and careful details of country life, country customs, country folk—­ as if that was what we were to think of, as we read of Ruth.  And that is what we do think of—­not of the ancestress of kings, but of the fair young heathen gleaning among the corn, with the pious, courteous, high-minded yeoman bidding her abide fast by his maidens, and when she was athirst drink of the wine which the young men have drawn, for it has been fully showed him all she has done for her mother-in-law; and the Lord will recompense her work, and a full reward be given her of the Lord God of Israel, under the shadow of whose wings she is to come to trust.  That is the scene which painters naturally draw; that is what we naturally think of; because God, who gave us the Bible, meant us to think thereof; and to know, that working in the quiet village, or in the distant field, women may be as pure and modest, men as high-minded and well-bred, and both as full of the fear of God, and the thought that God’s eye is upon them, as if they were in a place, or a station, where they had nothing to do but to watch over the salvation of their own souls; that the meadow and the harvest-field need not be, as they too often are, places for temptation and for defilement; where the old too often teach the young, not to fear God and keep themselves pure, but to copy their coarse jests and foul language, and listen to stories which had better be buried for ever in the dirt out of which they spring.  You know what I mean.  You know what field-work too often is.  Read the Book of Ruth, and see what field-work may be, and ought to be.

Yes, my dear friends.  Pure you may be, and gentle, upright, and godly, about your daily work, if the Spirit of God be within you.

Country life has its temptations:  and so has town life, and every life.  But there has no temptation taken you save such as is common to man.  Boaz, the rich yeoman; Naomi, the broken-hearted and ruined; Ruth, the fair young widow—­all had the very same temptations as are common to you now, here; but they conquered them, because they feared God and kept His commandments; and to know that, is necessary for your salvation.

And, looked at in this light, the Book of Ruth is indeed a prophecy; a forecast and a shadow of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Himself, who spake to country folk as never man spake before, and bade them look upon the simple, every-day matters which were around them in field and wood, and open their eyes to the Divine lessons of God’s providence, which also were all around them; who, born Himself in that little village of Bethlehem, and brought up in the little village of Nazareth, among the lonely lanes and downs, spoke of country things to country folk, and bade them read in the great green book which God has laid open before them all day long.  Who bade them to consider the lilies of the field, how they grew,