of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Then, in its highest religious meaning, the Menuchah signifies the peace, favour, rest and protection of God. Jesus Christ said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will be your Menuchah -I will give you rest"—sabbatic rest, complete peace, infinite reconciliation, the harmony in which there is no discord, the rest unbroken by a dream, undisturbed by any fear in the nightwatches. All this is made the more vividly clear if we look at the case of Boaz and Ruth. Boaz was a near kinsman. There was one nearer still, but he declined to take up the functions of the family Goel; then what we might call the Goelship fell to the lot of Boaz, and he assumed the responsibility and prosecuted the task. Then Boaz was, moreover, a rest-the man who afforded a sense of security to the poor wandering Moabitess. He was the Menuchah, the grand living asylum, in whose love Ruth found peace and security.

"She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,

Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her checks an autumn flush
Deeply ripened-such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round dark eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veiled a light

That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,

Made her tressy forehead dim;

Thus she stood amid the stocks,

Praising God with sweetest looks.

'Sure,' I said, 'Heaven did not mean

Where I reap thou should'st but glean;
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,

Share my harvest and my home.""

Transfer all these images to the Lord Jesus Christ, and see how beautifully they apply in every instance to the Messiah. He is our Goel; he will mightily redeem us: he will take back from the hands of the enemy all the prey which the enemy has seized; the foe will have to deliver up whatever he has possessed

himself of that belongs to God and humanity. The Goel will see us put into a secure position; a position of righteousness, of solid defence, of truth and probity. Then is he not the soul's Menuchah-the soul's resting-place, the soul's eternal asylum? Have we not sought peace everywhere and failed in the pursuit ? Have we not hewn out to ourselves cisterns, and found them to be broken cisterns that could hold no water? Have we not made a bed for ourselves in the wilderness, and found that we were pillowing our heads upon the sharp thorns? Amid all life's tumult and the maddening pain of the soul, there has come this sweet voice: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will be your Goel, your Menuchah; I will mightily deliver you and lead you into the rest of God. This is what we teach about Jesus Christ. These are the sublime truths we associate with his name. In all history men have needed a Goel or a deliverer, a Menuchah or a rest; and all the anxiety, strife, pain of the world's history, seemed to point in the direction of One who himself would combine the strength of the Goel and the grace of the Menuchah.

Thus a great historical gate is opened. Boaz was the father of Obed, Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David-the darling of Israel and the man after God's own heart. How little we know what we are doing! Who can tell what the next link in the chain will be? Let us persevere in our work as God may give us opportunity and grace. Sometimes it is very heavy; sometimes quite dreary; sometimes the sun is practically blotted out, and all the sky is in mourning. But if we rest on eternal principles, if we believe in the omnipotence of God, we shall live to see the return of the sun, and in the brightness of morning we shall forget the blackness and the sadness of night.

Looking at the Book of Ruth as a whole, we are struck with the marvellous working of providence. The book had a sad opening. It opened like a cloudy day. It began with famine and misery, and went onward into widowhood twice told; and the first chapter is like a rain of tears. We could not understand why it should be so--why there should be a famine in Israel. The famine might have been otherwhere: why not afflict the

heathen with famine, and let Israel, and Christian peoples, as we now term them, enjoy bountiful harvests, pulling down their barns to build greater? Why does the lightning strike the very steeple of the church? On the story goes, and God is working in it all. In the darkness his hand seems to be groping after something that he may loop on to something that had gone before. The movement of God is a movement of very subtle and intricate connections. Sometimes we wonder how the next link can be found, and often it is found in the night-time when we cannot see either the finder or the link he has found. Look at such portion of society as is open to our survey, and see how wonderful are the associations which have been made in life-the unexpected relationships, the strange coincidences, the marvellous creations of help, deliverance, and friendship culminating in the most practical affection. How are these people brought together? There was no plan in it on the human side; there was nothing on the human side but surprise; yet how the movement has proceeded, and how out of mysteries has happiness been consolidated! You heard a discourse, and it became the turningpoint in your life; you listened to a prayer, and whilst it was arising to heaven you made solemn oath and vow that you would be better, and that vow has been redeemed: you went into a public assembly, and saw a face, the seeing of which has changed the whole course of your life. The providence of God is not an Old Testament story; it is the action of the day, the movement now circling around us, the rustling of the leaves, the ploughing up of the land, the singing of the birds, the occurrences at home and abroad. Behold the hand of the living God, and in that hand put your trust. The most mysterious action of this providence was the bringing-in of the Gentiles. A new thing has been wrought in Israel: a Moabitess is numbered among the chosen children. Now that we read the story backwards we see the meaning of it all. Reading it as the facts occurred, the reading was often rough and most difficult. How true it is that we must wait to the end to see the real meaning of the beginning! When God's way is finished, God's way will be clear. We ought to take an interest in the introduction of Ruth into the sacred lineage, because she was the first-fruits of the people to whom we belong. She was a heathen woman, an outsider, a

Gentile, and we belonged once to that outlawed class. Mean it is of us to say we do not take any interest in the conversion of distant nations, when we ourselves were once a distant nation, and have been converted to the faith and crown of Christ. We are not true to our own history, or grateful for our own deliverance, in the degree in which we are indifferent to the conversion of those who are afar off. Ruth was our first-fruits; Ruth was our kinswoman in the larger sense. Blessed be God for the introduction of our sister into Israel. She was in the direct line of the Son of God. The Gentile woman became a progenitor of God's own Christ. A strange genealogy! Having perused it line by line we know what it is the great king, the unknown man, the harlot, the Gentile Ruth,-they all stand there, a symbolic humanity, so that when the Son of God comes, he comes not in one direction alone, not as born of the Jew only, but of a line of kings; in him all men are gathered up-the mightiest, the weakest, the wanderer, the homeless. Verily this Man was the Son of God-the Incarnate Deity!

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NOTE.

IF the PEOPLE'S BIBLE has to be limited to twenty-five volumes, and certainly I do not think it would be wise seriously to increase the number, it is evident that the point has been reached when condensation must begin. In my judgment compression will be least felt in the books which come between Ruth and Job, not only because they are almost wholly historical, but principally because they are marked by much repetition of detail. This explanation would seem to be necessary in view of considerable change of method within the indicated limits: when we come to the Book of Job we shall need all the space which can be allowed, for in that immortal drama the battles of the world are fought. Were I to mark down what might be called my chronological experience as a Bible reader, I should not hesitate to say that, up to this moment, my careful perusal of the Bible has increasingly confirmed my faith in its divine inspiration and authority. Without proceeding one page beyond the Book of Ruth, I know of a surety that the preceding portions of the Bible are not the work of inventors, dreamers, or impostors. The composition is too artless for a schemer, the history is too vivid for a dreamer, and the morality is too exacting for a libertine. My knowledge of the Bible increases my reverence for it in every aspect.