"And Boaz awoke, and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she said, I am Ruth, thy handmaid. Spread thy skirt over me, for thou art my near kinsman. And he said, Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast shown more kindness at the end than in the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not the young men, poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do for thee all that thou requirest, for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman."
The very crucial test of gentlemanly delicacy and honor is the manner in which it knows how to receive an ingenuous and simple-hearted act of confidence. As in the fields Boaz did not ostentatiously urge alms upon the timid maiden, but suffered her to have the pleasure of gleaning for herself, so now he treats this act by which she throws herself upon his protection as an honor done to him, for which he is bound to be grateful. He hastens to assure her that he is her debtor for the preference she shows him. That courtesy and chivalric feeling for woman which was so strong a feature in the character of Moses, and which is embodied in so many of his laws and institutes, comes out in this fine Hebrew gentleman as perfectly, but with more simplicity, than in the Sir Charles Grandison of the eighteenth century. And so, at last, the lovely stranger, Ruth the Moabitess, becomes the wife of the rich landed proprietor, with the universal consent of all the people. "And all the people that were in the gates and the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make this woman that is come into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel."
From this marriage of the chivalrous, pious old man with the devoted and loving Ruth the Moabitess, sprang an auspicious lineage. The house of David, the holy maiden of Judæa and her son, whom all nations call blessed, were the illustrious seed of this wedding. In the scene at the birth of the first son of Ruth, we have a fine picture of the manners of those days. "And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thy old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, and is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David."
In all this we see how strong is the impression which the loving nature of Ruth makes in the narrative. From the union of this woman so tender and true, and this man so gracious and noble and chivalric, comes the great heart-poet of the world. No other songs have been so dear to mankind, so cherished in the heart of high and low, rich and poor, in every nation and language, as these Psalms of David.
"It is that music to whose tone
The common pulse of man keeps time,
In cot or castle's mirth or moan,
In cold or fervid clime."
In the tender friendship of David for Jonathan, we see again the loving constancy of Ruth in a manly form,—the love between soul and soul, which was "wonderful, passing the love of women." In the ideal which we form of Mary, the mother of Jesus, lowly, modest, pious, constant, rich in the power of love and in a simple, trustful faith, we see the transmission of family traits through generations. Dante, in his "Paradise," places Ruth among the holy women who sit at the feet of the glorified Madonna. The Providence that called a Moabitish ancestress into that golden line whence should spring the Messiah was a sort of morning star of intimation that He should be of no limited nationality; that he was to be the Son of Man, the Lord and brother of all mankind.
[THE WITCH OF ENDOR.]
