he cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel: and the king spoke and said to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?"

DANIEL TRIUMPHS OVER HIS ADVERSARIES

Then said Daniel to the king: "O king, live forever! My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt."

Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God.

And the king commanded, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and broke all their bones in pieces, before they came to the bottom of the den.

Then king Darius wrote to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth:

"Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel:

"For he is the living God,

And he is steadfast forever.

His kingdom shall not be destroyed,

And his dominion shall be even unto the end.

He delivereth and rescueth,

And he worketh signs and wonders

In heaven and in earth,

Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

W

RUTH

THE PROPHETIC ROMANCE OF A FAR-OFF DAY

HILE the world lasts, and human hearts continue to love

and be loved, Ruth and Naomi, in the wonder of their love for each other, will stand as eternal types of pure friendship among women. Where in all the world's vast literature of affection can we find a fuller outflowing of personal devotion expressed in any lovelier abandon of pleading tenderness than in these appealing words of Ruth? "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.”

How beautiful they are, in the simplicity and directness of their pleading; how true, in the purity and completeness of the love they convey! What had Ruth to give, that she did not give? what to leave, that she did not renounce? Country and kindred and people, even life itself! And all for the joy merely of being with Naomi and sharing with her whatever of joy or sorrow the future might bring.

Love, after all, seeks but one reward,-the joy of nearness to and companionship with the beloved. "Entreat me not to leave thee." That is love's only plea.

But, while we shall never cease to take delight in these two women of a far-off day when judges ruled in Israel, we shall miss entirely the purpose and message of the Book of Ruth, to say nothing of its rare poetry and charm, if we go no further in our appreciation than the love of Ruth and Naomi for each other. For the Book of Ruth was written preeminently for the purpose of acquainting Israel with the romance and marriage of Ruth and Boaz, a Moabitess and a Bethlehemite; romance, that was prophecy in life; prophecy that found living fulfilment in Obed and Jesse and David, and finally in Jesus, the Christ.

Like all true prophecy, this one was at once a message and a rebuke. It rebuked the narrow and hateful doctrine of separatism so cruelly enforced in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah; and it did so, by setting forth in simple beauty the truth involved in the union of Ruth and Boaz, a

truth eternally evidenced wherever true affection holds uniting and ennobling sway: the truth, namely, that human love given in honor and in honor received, regardless of the barriers of race or clan or creed, is one of God's most effective instruments in building that family on earth that shall be named after his name forever. For Ruth the Moabitess, daughter of a hated race, became through the power of human affection divinely directed, the ancestress of David, Israel's most loved and idealized king.

All this the writer of the Book of Ruth has woven into the living texture of his story. There are no obnoxious moralizings in it, no irritating artificialities. All we have is a simple narrative of love, running its quiet course like a living stream through an autumn vale, adding its own loveliness and charm to the ever-varying wonders of woodland and hill and field and sky, setting off and enhancing its own limpid beauty in the lights and shadows, the colors and contours of the landscape through which it flows, moving quietly on and on through all the changing moods of gloom and gladness, till it finds its destiny, its fuller flow, in the deeper waters of the abiding river of love.

The tale is drenched in the poetry of the out-of-doors. The year is at the fall, when solemn glory crowns mountain and hill and dale, and fields heavy-laden with barley and wheat drop contentedly their drooping burdens at every sure swing of the reaper's swift arm. There is toil by day, with the flash of sunlight upon gleaming sickles and falling grain, and the laughter and jollity of reapers vying with each other, and the sad eagerness of the poor, earnestly gleaning behind them. There are the meals by day, bountiful with wholesome country fare and "wine that maketh glad the heart"; and the rest at eventide when moonlight or darkness falls upon quiet fields, and song and story add their refining charms to the general festivities of harvest home. In some such atmosphere as this Ruth and Boaz met, and loved; so that the very name of Ruth has become redolent forever with the fragrance and poetry of autumn and the harvest-tide.

The story, moreover, is emotionally satisfying, running the whole gamut of human experience to its proper climax in "a mother's deep prayer and a baby's low cry":

"Famine and want and exile,

And marriage and death and tears,
And two women, love-bound, returning
To widowhood's lingering years;

Then the glad, sad time of the harvest,
And a love in maturity's morn;

The beneficent smile of the Lord over all,

And the cry of a babe new-born."

And the cry of the babe is the hope of the world; for historic life moves from cradle to cradle, not from cradle to grave; and the Manger is ever the Throne; and Love, the Scepter and Crown.

RUTH

PERSONS OF THE NARRATIVE

Elimelech, a man of Bethlehem, sojourning in Moab

Naomi, wife of Elimelech

Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi

Chilion, son of Elimelech and Naomi

Orpah, a woman of Moab, wife of Chilion

Ruth, a woman of Moab, wife of Mahlon

Boaz, a wealthy farmer of Bethlehem, kinsman of Elimelech
Reapers, gleaners

A near kinsman of Elimelech

PLACE

Bethlehem of Judah; the land of Moab

TIME

The days of the Judges

RUTH'S LOYALTY TO NAOMI

OW it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled,

N

that there was a famine in the land. And a certain

man of Beth-lehem-judah2 went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Mahlon [Sickly] and Chilion [Wasting Away], Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth; and they dwelt there about ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband.

Then she rose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the

country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house: the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them.

And they lifted up their voice, and wept. And they said to her, "Surely we will return with thee to thy people."

But Naomi said, "Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone forth against me.

And they lifted up their voice, and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave to her. And