RUTH. 
263 
Naomi bids her follow the reapers of Boaz according to his wish ; 
and she did so " through the barley-harvest, and through the 
wheat-harvest, and she dwelt with her mother-in-law." It was 
at the close of the harvest that Ruth, following Naomi's direc- 
tions, laid herself down at night, at the feet of Boaz, as he slept 
on the threshing-floor ; an act by which she reminded him of the 
law that the nearest of kin should marry the childless widow 
This act has been very severely commented on. Upon this 
ground only, M. de Yoltaire has not scrupled to apply to Ruth 
one of the most justly opprobrious words in human language ; 
and several noted skeptics of the English school have given this 
as one among their objections against the Holy Scriptures.'^ As 
though in a state of society wholly simple and primitive, we were 
to judge of Ruth by the rules of propriety prevailing in the 
courts of Charles 11. and Louis XV. Ruth and Boaz lived, in- 
deed, among a race, and in an age, when not only the daily 
speech, but the daily life also, was highly figurative ; when it was 
the great object of language and of action to give force and ex- 
pression to the intention of the mind, instead of applying, as in a 
later, and a degenerate society, all the powers of speech and 
action to concealing the real object in view. The simplicity with 
which this pecuharly Jewish part of the narrative is given, will 
rather appear to the impartial judge a merit. But the Christian 
has double grounds for receiving this fact in the same spirit as it 
is recorded, and upon those grounds we may feel confident that, 
had Ruth been a guilty woman, or had Boaz acted otherwise than 
uprightly toward the young widow, neither would have been 
spared the open shame of such misconduct. The Book of Ruth 
See Letters of the Jews to Voltaire. 
