Round her eyes her tresses fell, Which were blackest none could tell, But long lashes veil'd a light, That had else been all too bright.
^ Hugh Macmillan.
RUTH 11. 4 239
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, Heav'n did not mean, Where I reap thou shouldst but glean. Lay thy sheaf adown and come, Share my harvest and my home.^
^ Perhaps nothing links us more closely with generations that are past and with races long departed than the yearly operations of the harvest. Social customs are varied in many lands and differ widely among distinct nations. Society frames one set of rules for its protection in this country and another in that, and so diverse are these conventionalities that what would be the strictest etiquette in one land would sometimes be the grossest outrage in another. It is hard for us, with our modern ideas and western modes of thought, to enter into the spirit of many social and domestic customs of the Egypt of the Pharaohs, or even the Eome of the Caesars. We even find it hard, unless we dwell long among them, to understand the ways of our con- tinental neighbours to-day. But when we come to consider the operations of the harvest in almost any land or any age, we seem to stand on familiar ground. Change and variety show them- selves here also, it is true. Machinery has made a vast revolu- tion in our methods of agriculture. The primitive practices of former years would only produce a smile of contempt if employed in England to-day. But for all that we are on familiar ground when we read the story of the harvests of other days. In the main, the operations of to-day are the same as those of genera- tions long fallen asleep. The same ploughing and harrowing, the same sowing and reaping, the same threshing and winnowing, the same process repeated again and again as years roll on, link us with all lands and all ages in a bond of brotherhood. The Saviour's parables of the cornfields might almost have been uttered by Him without change of language in our own cornfields to-day. The grain of wheat found in the wrappings of the mummy brings us more closely into touch with the Egypt of olden times than the mummy itself. The harvest-field seems to be the meeting-point, the common ground, of all civilized races and all generations. Elsewhere they may be divided; but in gathering their bread men are one.
' Thomas Hood.
240 A GREETING IN HARVEST
Even so is it when men are brought into relationship with Him who, as a corn of wheat, fell into the ground and died, that He might produce the harvest of world-wide salvation. The Bread of Life is the common need of man, and in gathering that Bread, in seeking and following that one Saviour, men are ever drawn more closely to each other. Apart from Him they may be separated, scattered, divided, hostile; in Him they become brethren ; they are " all one in Christ Jesus."
3. The intercourse of Boaz with his reapers shows us that the relations between them were not commercial but patriarchal. He took a warm interest in themselves and their doings, and they in turn were kindly affectioned towards him. He not only super- vised the work of his servants, but gave them assistance in it. He partook of the same food with them, and quenched his thirst from the vessels which the young men had drawn for common use. It was no niggardly hand that dispensed the provisions of the harvest-folk ; and an injunction was given to the reapers to allow the poor strange gleaner to glean even among the sheaves where the ears were more plentiful, and to let fall handfuls of the grain on purpose that she might pick them up innocently and increase her store.
^ I have been interrupted by the visit of a lady of my con- gregation, who came to take leave ; one, it appears, who has been warmly attached to the instruction given there. She told me the delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a kind look on going out of church on Sunday. What a lesson ! How cheaply happi- ness can be given! What opportunities we miss of doing an angel's work ! I remember doing it, full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it ; and it gave an hour's sun- shine to a human life, and lightened the load of life to a human heart — for a time ! ^
^ There was a time, not so long ago, when the same simple and generous manners prevailed in Scotland among the agri- cultural class : when those who tilled the soil together fared alike, and masters and servants sat at the same table without any sense of incongruity or unfitness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The harvest-field was looked upon as a kind of communion-table in which master and servant recognized their common dependence upon the bounty of the universal Father, and
^ F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 210. / / i '^t yo- i