We naturally congratulate our favourites upon their prosperity; and the interest we must feel in the history of Ruth swells into the highest satisfaction upon reading the closing part of the narrative. We hear of the birth of Obed, who derives additional importance from the illustrious line of his descent. A few generations conduct immediately to the MESSIAH. All the neighbourhood celebrates the event, and we have equal reason to hail and proclaim it: "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 thine old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which 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 neighbours 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." Ordinary minds avoid, as much as possible, recurring to past periods of indigence and inferiority of station. Any reference to such circumstances is deemed offensive, by people of the world who have been elevated from low situations to opulence and rank, and whose arrogant nothingness proves they have descended in moral worth and real respectability exactly in proportion as they have risen in temporal distinction. But every thing we know of Ruth tends to convince us that, if a detailed account of her private life had been given, it would have been highly honourable to her sensibility and her piety. How often, and with what feelings, would she pace the field where, in the situation of a humble gleaner, she first met with Boaz. With what emotions would she trace and retrace her own eventful story! And especially, with what devout gratitude would she call to mind the days of her idolatry in Moab, and the happy era of her spiritual emancipation! In her own past character, in her infatuated sister's defection, what motives to praise would arise, and what tears of mingled pain and pleasure would she shed! And shall not we, who have "tasted that the Lord is gracious," cherish a sense of our obligations to redeeming mercy, and "remember all the way which the Lord our God hath led us these years in the wilderness, to humble us and to prove us, to know what was in our hearts, whether we would keep his commandments or no?" Sweet are the recollections of piety, and acceptable the offerings of a grateful mind! How inferior to these the trees of Lebanon in sacrifice, or all the spicy mountains of Arabia in a blaze! From what depths of sin, what delusions of mind, and what danger of soul, has "God in Christ" delivered us! "Once far off," we are now "brought nigh"--"sometimes darkness, now light in the Lord"--"you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."