The most sweetly primitive and poetic touch of all this story is the blessing of the women upon Naomi, when the babe that had been given Ruth after her marriage to Boaz was laid in the mother-in-law’s bosom: “Blessed be the Lord, which had 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.” Ruth, by birth, was a heathen. As such, she was excluded from God’s covenanted people. But, in her case, love was mightier than law. In the fullness of time it was shown to be the fulfillment of law. Though her people were specially interdicted, she was admitted to the first rank and led by Providence into the line of the world’s nobility. Her life shows how God values beautiful, loving character even more than great deeds. As her name indicates, she was a “faithful friend.” It was what she was, rather than what she did, that brought her the high honor of being the mother of Obed, and the ancestress, not only of David and Solomon, the greatest Jewish kings, but of Christ Himself. To a believing people like the Hebrews, who lived for the future, that was the climax of Divine approval. What amazing results have been accomplished by women of faith. It will be well for us to study and emulate the sweet, obedient faith of this beautiful Moabitess. We must remember that it is not the quantity, but quality, of our service that pleases most our heavenly Father; not what we do, but what we are. We may never do great things, but, through grace, we can all be faithful. We may pass from the stage of action, but the splendid deeds wrought in faith will remain, shedding their influence across the bosom of a sinful world, like so many beacon lights guiding a guilty race back to a Father’s love, and the world’s final redemption. We now come to Hannah, the last woman in White Raiment under the Theocracy. The mother of the great and good Samuel will ever stand in history as among the purest of women. It often happens that the mother is lost sight of in the fame of her son. This is quite true in the life of Samuel. He stands out the great Reformer of his time, lifting his people out of the Dark Ages of the Old Testament and leading them into the Golden Age of David’s kingdom and Israel’s pre-eminence among the nations. But while Samuel ranks with Joseph, and Joshua, and Daniel, in the blamelessness of his life, let us not forget that back of that great life was a woman’s broken heart, a woman’s tears, a woman’s life made bitter by disappointment and humiliation, made so by a polygamous system whose fruit must ever be jealousy and sorrow--ever a sign of a low condition of social morality.