We cannot leave this record of Holy Writ without commenting also on the remarkable state of society which existed in Bethlehem in those far distant days. When Naomi returned after an absence of ten years--an absence which to many might have seemed very culpable--with what enthusiastic greetings was she received. "The whole city was moved." It made no difference that she "went out full but had returned empty;" nor did they stop to consider that "the Lord had testified against her." The truest sympathy was manifested for her and for the stranger who had loved her and clung to her. In her sorrow they clustered around to comfort her, and when the bright reverse gave her again an honored name and "a restorer of her life" in her young grandson, they were eager to testify their joy. The apostolic injunction, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep," seems to have been strictly obeyed in Bethlehem. The distinctions of society, although as marked apparently as in our own time, seem not to have caused either unhappiness nor the slightest approach to unkind or unchristian feeling. Witness the greeting between Boaz and the reapers on his harvest field. "And behold Boaz came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee." Boaz was "a mighty man of wealth;" he had his hired workmen around him, and in the same field was found the poor "Moabitish damsel," gleaning here and there the scattered ears, her only dependence. Yet we find them all sitting together in the hut which was erected for shelter, and eating together the parched grain which was provided for the noon's refreshment, while Boaz enters into a conversation with Ruth which indicates his truly noble and generous character, and speaks words which are like balm to the sorrowing spirit. "Thou hast comforted me and spoken to the heart of thy handmaid," she said as she rose to leave the tent and felt herself no longer a stranger, since one so excellent and so exalted in station appreciated and sympathized with her. We see little in these Gospel days and in this favored land which will compare with the genuine kindliness which breathes in every word and act recorded in the book of Ruth. But the most surprising revelation is made in the account which follows the scene in the tent. What exalted principle--what respect for woman--what noble virtue must have characterized those among whom a mother could send her daughter at night to perform the part assigned to Ruth, apparently without a fear of evil, and receive her again, not only unharmed, but understood, honored, and wedded by the man to whom she was sent, and that notwithstanding her foreign birth and dependent situation, and fettered with the condition that her first-born son must bear the name and be considered the child of a dead man!