Chapter 6

Jehovah illustrates this principle in all his administration. What to Elijah on the solemn mount was the sweep of the hurricane, rending the cliffs and tossing rocks like withered leaves in air--the thunder of the earthquake's march--the blinding glow of the mantling flame--compared to the "still small voice" that thrilled on his ear, so full of God! It is not strange that there is to be a reckoning for "idle words" even, for they have shaken the world, and their echo will never die away.

Their mutual love and devout character, remind us of the affectionate fidelity to each other and to God, of Ruth the Moabitess, and her Hebrew mother-in-law Naomi, who lived in the time of the Judges.

Naomi's family were self-exiled on account of famine in Palestine. Ruth had married a man of Moab; but he and her father-in-law died. A sister whose husband was brother to her own, was also a widow; and when Naomi determined to return to her native land, at her request, Orphah sought her people and friends.

Ruth would not leave the pilgrim to the Holy Land. Embracing Naomi, she said: "Entreat me not to leave thee, for where thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be mine, and thy God my God: where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried: naught but death shall part us."

Beautiful and brave heart! home, and friends, and wealth, nay, the gods she had been taught to worship, were all forgotten in the warmth of her affection. Tearful yet firm, "Entreat me not to leave thee," she said. "I care not for the future; I can bear the worst; and when thou art taken from me, I will linger around thy grave till I die, and then the stranger shall lay me by thy side!" What could Naomi do but fold the beautiful being to her bosom and be silent, except as tears gave utterance to her emotions. Such a heart outweighs the treasures of the world, and such absorbing love, truth, and virtue, make all the accomplishments of life appear worthless in comparison.

God blessed their devotion to him and each other, giving his special tokens of favor to the young heroine from Moab. Upon reaching Bethlehem, she went into the fields of a kinsman of her mother-in-law, Boaz, a wealthy citizen, to glean after the reapers. He inquired after her, became interested in her, and, remembering his obligations on account of their relationship, married her. An honorable portion and plenty crowned the homeless wanderings of Ruth and Naomi, as they did the captivity of Mordecai and Esther.

About two hundred years after the death of the latter, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek by the order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the Egyptian sovereign of Palestine, making the famous Septuagint--the name probably referring to seventy-two persons engaged on the work.

A little over two centuries passed, and the Roman armies began their conquests in Asia. Less than a score of years later Herod the Great governed Judea, under the Roman emperor. This Herod, whose reign closed the ancient annals of Palestine, was an Edomite--a cruel and ambitious man.

Less than thirty years passed, and one of the darkest, bloodiest acts of any sovereign since time began, disgraced the reign of Herod.

Jerusalem was astonished by the arrival of three sages from the distant east, inquiring for a new-born king, saying that they had seen "his star," and had come to offer him their gifts and homage. They found him in the manger at Bethlehem: and then repaired to their own country without returning to Jerusalem, as Herod had desired. The jealousy of that tyrant had been awakened by their inquiry for the "King of the Jews;" and as their neglect to return prevented him from distinguishing the object of their homage, he had the inconceivable barbarity to order that all the children in Bethlehem under two years of age should be put to death, trusting that the intended victim would fall in the general slaughter; but Joseph had previously been warned in a dream to take his wife and the infant to the land of Egypt, whence they did not return till after the death of Herod.

That event was not long delayed. In the sixty-ninth year of his age. Herod fell ill of the disease which occasioned his death. That disease was in his bowels, and not only put him to the most cruel tortures, but rendered him altogether loathsome to himself and others. The natural ferocity of his temper could not be tamed by such experience. Knowing that the nation would little regret his death, he ordered the persons of chief note to be confined in a tower, and all of them to be slain when his own death took place, that there might be cause for weeping in Jerusalem. This savage order was not executed. After a reign of thirty-seven years, Herod died In the seventieth year of his age.

Sir Walter Scott's beautiful "Hebrew Hymn" will fittingly close these sketches of Palestine:

When Israel, of the Lord beloved, Out from the land of bondage came, Her father's God before her moved, An awful guide, in smoke and flame. By day along the astonished lands, The cloudy pillar glided slow; By night Arabia's crimsoned sands Returned the fiery columns' glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise, And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priests' and warriors' voice between. No portents now our foes amaze, Forsaken Israel wanders lone; Our fathers would not know Thy ways, And Thou has left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen, When brightly shines the prosperous day, Be thoughts of Thee, a cloudy screen, To temper the deceitful ray. And oh! when stoops on Judah's path, In shade and storm, the frequent night, Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and a shining light.

Our harps we left by Babel's streams, The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn, No censer round our altar beams, And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn, But thou hast said, "The blood of goat, The flesh of rams I will not prize, A contrite heart, an humble thought, Are more accepted sacrifice."