am, that which you will live for now, ad enjoy for ever?

But let us, before we close this chapter, fix our thoughts a moment on Orpah.

I am afraid there are a great many who have right feelings and good intentions, but they want that decision which is needful. So it was with Orpah. She was half-inclined to cast in her lot with Naomi. But the journey was long, and the rowful one; and she

home she had just left. case with Lot's wife.

prospect a sorthought of the

Such was the She took the

angel's advice, and escaped out of the city with her friends; but her heart and her affections were in Sodom; and she looked back with a longing eye on

what she had left behind her. Such also was the case with those disciple to whom our Lord was forced to say. "Will ye also go away?" And so it was with the Galatians, to whom St. Paul wrote, "Ye did run well.

doth hinder you?"

Who

Beware of indecision. It will not do to serve God in a half-hearted way. It will not do to halt and waver in our course. This was the ruin of Orpah : and who can doubt that she suffered bitterly for it? She returned to her home, but she found there no peace, There was no one to follow up the good instructions of her mother-in-law: no one to speak any more of that dear Friend above, on whom their thoughts had so often dwelt. How sad she must have felt! And when her thoughts

45

CHAPTER V.

THE RETURN.

RUTH I. 19-22. So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi ?

And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara for the Alınighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.

ORPAH having turned back, Naomi ad Ruth proceed onward on their nely journey. What a helpless pair! y this time Naomi must have been dvanced in years; and her strength ad been pulled down by the many nd severe trials which she had passed through. Ruth was young; but she too had drunk of the bitter cup of affliction. Both of them were poor. And many a one, who met them on their way, must have wondered what could be the errand on which these two widows could be going. Anxiety and distress were marked upon their countenances; and there was something in their manner and appearance, which plainly shewed that they had seen better and happier days.

After many a weary step, they come