piritual improvement; the great duties of
life cross the field like strong reapers, and carry off all the hours,
and there is only here and there a fragment left, that is not worth
gleaning. Ah, my friends, you could go into the busiest day and
busiest week of your life and find golden opportunities, which,
gathered, might at last make a whole sheaf for the Lord's garner. It
is the stray opportunities and the stray privileges which, taken up
and bound together and beaten out, will at last fill you with much
joy.

There are a few moments left worth the gleaning. Now, Ruth, to the
field! May each one have a measure full and running over! Oh, you
gleaners, to the field! And if there be in your household an aged one
or a sick relative that is not strong enough to come forth and toil in
this field, then let Ruth take home to feeble Naomi this sheaf of
gleaning: "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with
him." May the Lord God of Ruth and Naomi be our portion forever!

THE THREE RINGS.

"Put a ring on his hand."--LUKE xv: 22.

I will not rehearse the familiar story of the fast young man of the
parable. You know what a splendid home he left. You know what a hard
time he had. And you remember how after that season of vagabondage and
prodigality he resolved to go and weep out his sorrows on the bosom of
parental forgiveness. Well, there is great excitement one day in front
of the door of the old farmhouse. The servants come rushing up and
say: "What's the matter? What _is_ the matter?" But before they quite
arrive, the old man cries out: "Put a ring on his hand." What a
seeming absurdity! What can such a wretched mendicant as this fellow
that is tramping on toward the house want with a ring? Oh, he is the
prodigal son. No more tending of the swine-trough. No more longing for
the pods of the carob-tree. No more blistered feet. Off with the rags!
On with the robe! Out with the ring! Even so does God receive every
one of us when we come back. There are gold rings, and pearl rings,
and carnelian rings, and diamond rings; but the richest ring that ever
flashed on the vision is that which our Father puts upon a forgiven
soul.

I know that the impression is abroad among some people that religion
bemeans and belittles a man; that it takes all the sparkle out of his
soul; that he has to exchange a roistering independence for an
ecclesias