is nlso ihe essence of mercy, and how God's kindness even on the cross shows that ju~tice and mercy blend with ench other. III. THE LORD LOOKS FOR OUR LOVE TO RI'M IN OUR LOVE TO EACH OTHER. If we love him we shall feed his lambs, forgive our enemies, and fulfil the whole law of love. Bow many there have been who, professing even an extreme sanctity have rohberl their partners, deluded their followers, and sometimes darkened for ~ver a brightly opening life. It is saddening to think what religion has suffered from thosa whose counte~anc~s advertise a~perity and contempt, selfishness and pride, whilst they carry their Bibles under their arms, nnd seem shocked at the exuberance of n. healthy joy. Deal kindly? Not they. Their silken words are often the soft sheaths of dagger purposes, and their sham friendship is often only the occasion of stealing mental photographs of you to distribute among their friends. Deal kindly? Why they slc,ep as well when they have wounded as when they have healed, and they do not understand what the plan of salvation has to do with a conscientious rectitude, a tender consideration, and a warm and loving heart. Deal kindly. Let the Church arise and shine, and put on her beautiful garments. Let the venerable Apostle John take his place once more in the midst of the Churches, and say, " Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, for God is Jove." " If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth." " He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." How true we feel all this to be, and yet how hard in such a world as this. God is light, God is love, but unless we walk in the light with him we know nothing of it at all. It is still more popular to discuss a mystery than to seek after a Divine ideal. It is still true that many appraise their goodness by their greater enlightenment on some disputable points of religion, and they greatly hope their friend and brother will come to see like themselves. Alas I alas I all the while we may perchance be so untrue to Christ, we may be experiencing no sensitive grief that we are unlike the chief Shepherd of the sheep, so worldly, so captious, so dull in all Divine sensibilities. Naomi's prayer, therefore, may teach us much to-day about God-our Saviour ; much, too, about ourselves. This, at all events, is true. If the harvests of love come late, they are very real and very precious. Years alone can reveal character. We know what others are in times of test and trial, as Naomi did in a strange land. She was a mother-in-law, and that is a hard part to fulfil, often the subject of satire, too often, indeed, an experience which awakens slender sympathy • she yet gained the crown of trust, and honour, and love. And now, how can she sp~ak better for others than by speaking to God for them ? The God who has never left her, the God who has been the husband of the widow, the God who sent her human solace in the trying hours of her bereavement in the f,'.1r away land. "The Lord deal kindly with you." When once in the hush of death a girl stood at the threshold of the door, trembling, as childhood does, i_n the presenc? of death, the mother, bending over the quiet sleeper, beckoned her m. She regained confidence then, and taking up the cold hand kissed it, and said of her dead brother, " Mother, that hand ne,er struck me." How beautiful I Can we say the same, that we never wounded the dead ? Can we say it of the Christ himself, that we never crucified the Son of God afresh ? And now we look up to the great Father of our spi!its, and the God of our salvation and pray him to bless all we love, to make them his own now and evermore. Hie' kindness is truer, deeper, wiser than our own. "The Lord bless them and keep them." "The Lord deal kindly with them,"-W. M. B.
EXPOSITION. gods," is rendered by Dr. Cassel " and to CHAPTER I. 15-22. her God." The same interpretation, it is noteworthy, is given in the Targum of Ver. 15.-And she 1aid, Behold, thy Jonathan, who renders the expression, 1iater-in-law is gone back to her people, a.nd to her gods : return thou after thy "and to her Fear" (l'=ln?IJ"J M,1?~). Such a 11ister-in-law. The expression that stands translation assumes that the Moabites were in King James's version thus, "and to her uot only theists, but monotheists. And yet CII. I, 15-22.] THE BOOK OF ROTH. 19