A GOOD DAY'S GLEANING.

A Sermon

PREACHED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 22ND, 1890, AT REGENT SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

verse.

TEXT -Ruth ii. 19.

LET us fix our attention on the question in the nineteenth "And her mother-in-law [Naomi] said unto her [Ruth], Where hast thou gleaned to-day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz." I wish, my friends, very simply to accommodate certain points in this narrative, and certain reflections suggested by the question addressed by Naomi to Ruth, to our own circumstances.

This story is so familiar to us all, that no time need be taken up in rehearsing it. The idea in my mind is something like this-by means of this question, "Where hast thou gleaned to-day?" (not, of course, forgetting the Vol. II.-No. 7.

historical setting, but using it, working that up as best we may), to question you gathered here to-day. I would like to ask, then, Who are you? How fares it with you ? and What is your outlook? If you will allow me, I shall try to make the best use of that gossiping instinct which, speaking generally, is in all our hearts, and which prompts us all, more or less, to "want to know, you know." We all run down gossiping, and we all do it. Of course we mean by that, that our gossip is not the ordinary heartless, profitless kind, but that our inquiries are directed and informed by sympathy and wisdom, and by a true interest in the person concerning whom we want to know. Well, then, let us think of our text to-day as though it were some gentle, sympathetic person who has met us, and wants to ask who we are and all about us.

Let Naomi ask us this question, and let us answer, as far as we can, out of Ruth's experience. Where hast thou gleaned?" Where have you been lately? What have you been doing? "What have you been up to?" How has the turn of events served you? How goes the day? What profit is there in your labour under the sun?

The first thing I am impressed with is this-if you will allow Ruth to answer the question for us-no matter how dark may have been your past life, no matter through what changes and hardships you may have come, you are not justified in giving in to melancholy, much less to despair.

If that is your condition of mind, Ruth's story ought to help you. Do not sit down and fold your hands, and say, "My hopes are buried; a wall has been built across my path; I am entangled in the land; the wilderness has shut me in; I am like a derelict ship, I have lost compass and rudder, the masts are broken, the sails torn, I am at the mercy of every wind that blows." Ruth might have said that. If you had stood up before her, and asked who she was, and what she was doing, and what were her prospects, she might have said, "Really, you need hardly ask me who I am, I am of no account whatever; go and ask somebody who has something to tell, who can give you a story with. some meaning and purpose and hope. As for me, in my life there is no light, no hope. My crazy bark is whirling like a nutshell in the sea. Years ago I thought I was somebody. I was Mrs. So-and-so; I had some name and note and some mark. I could have told you then of plans and purposes. My heart was young; my hopes rose high. But now

Among these rigs I scrape a living with my fingers' ends. She might have said that, but we know to-day that there was no life more full of Divine purpose and hope than the life of this poor widowed, forlorn woman standing sick of

*Poor harvest woman,

heart amidst the alien corn. That morning she went out to work with a tear in her eye and sadness nestling at her heart, and the lump, as in your own case, perhaps, while I speak, the lump continually rising in her throat. Now, don't you sit down and mope; do as Ruth did. That very day, under an inspiration greater than her own (if you look at the beginning of the chapter), Ruth the Moabitess said, "Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace." Do not sit still; go on with your round. If things are dark when you look back, and dreary when you look forward, do not faint or repine. Cast about, go out and forage somewhere. Don't sit indoors and let all manner of gloomy thoughts swoop down upon you. You cannot help trouble coming, but there is no reason why you should just let it fasten on you. The old saying puts it, "You cannot keep the ravens from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building their nest in your hair." You cannot prevent sorrow and trouble, but you can rouse yourself, and shake yourself, and pull yourself together, and say, "I will not sit still, and fold my hands and die. 'Tis a busy world, let me go out and see whether I cannot find some engagement, however humble, in its affairs." Do the thing that lies next to your hand; go back to the ordinary common work-a-day world, and you will find relief. A new morning has come; be you a new man, a new woman, for the new day that you

never lived before, and that you will never have to live again. Be as new as the sun, while you are also, so to speak, as old and as familiar. Go out, for between you and me, let me whisper in your ear the world is still God's field. The earth is the Lord's; and the Proprietor still walks over His fields.

“She went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech : " and thereby hangs a tale. Now, I am not going over the whole story; I just want to weave in certain threads as I go along. "Where hast thou gleaned to-day?" If, in answer to my question, you would say that you are nobody, that you are of no account, and that all life's plans and purposes have come to one swift catastrophe, I rebuke you from Ruth's history. You may be poor and obscure; so was Ruth; but a new day had dawned. The darkest hour is the hour before the dawn; when things are at their worst they begin to mend. Keep up your heart; greater, if you only thought it, are the things behind the scenes in your favour, than all that seems to be against you.

Go out, go on; God lives, blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be praised!

Then, when we stand here and ask, and answer, the questions that flew swift as a weaver's shuttle between Ruth and Naomi,-does not this come out? You have not