The Rev Peter McKenzie at Conisborough last night

The Rev Peter McKenzie, the well-known divine and and lecturer, visit Conisborough yesterday, where he preached in the Wesleyan Chapel in the afternoon, and delivered a lecture on “Ruth and her relatives” in the evening.

The chair in the evening was seen by Mr Turner of Dewsbury, and there were also present in the pulpit, the Rev A Roberts (Rawmarsh) Mrs E Kilner and Mr James Blythe

The proceedings were opened with singing and prayer.

The chairman was received with applause and said he had come all the way from Dewsbury to preside over a meeting in which Mr McKenzie took part, for if there was one man he admired over another in this country it was Mr McKenzie. (Cheers,)

He then introduced Mr McKenzie.

The lecturer, who was received with cheers, said he had been in that neighbourhood before, although he had never been at the place, he had passed it in going through. He could not tell them how pleased he was to be present in such a beautiful sanctuary, in such a beautiful neighbourhood, taking part in the service in that grand and beautiful monument of philanthropy and Christian liberality.

He had chosen for his lecture that night “Ruth and her relatives.”

How kind the Lord was to preserve them such beautiful Christian characters. The different characters which they met within the Bible declared the glory of the Lord quite as much as the things in the air, and the beautiful flowers on the earth.

There was Genesis with its sublime revelations – what glimpses of piety they got there, what grand views of the marvellous things in nature.

The Rev gentlemen then went to deal with most of the other books in the Old Testament, showing the grand, angled, and normal characters they presented to Christians.

When they came to Ruth it was as though they came upon an oasis in the desert, a star in the dark night, a cottage in a wood. (Cheers.) How nice it was, after all to come across such a book that was domestic in its very essence.

The woman characters in the Old Testament were then dealt with detail by the lecturer.

When they thought of Miriam when she put little Moses in the river, and saw what became of him; and when she saw Pharaoh’s daughter fishing out how delighted she was. “Would she like a nurse for the child” – laughter – and so she became a nurse to her own child. Wasn’t that a stroke of business? (Laughter) and when she got to womanhood and Israel got deliverance, and how she claimed her dear son. They had sweet women characters down to the time when the women in the Old Testament washed our saviour’s feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.

Then they read of the woman Dorcas, who made clothes for the poor widows, and how the Lord had taken her away to the other world; but the poor people cried and made so much of it that the Lord was forced to send her back again, and so she got her second appointment on the same circuit. (Laughter.)

What honorable mention was there of women, and then they came to “Ruth and her relatives.” There was a famine in Israel, and it reached right away to Bethlehem; when it was through invasion he did not know; perhaps it was because the people had forgotten God, and all His bountiful mercies; if people forgot truth God in his mercy brought the recollection back to them. The Lord kept the corks in the bottles and refuse to allow the clouds to collect and drop their moisture.

A word to the boys present – the young people. He wanted them to remember that a single acre when it got an inch of water they were a hundred tons of water in that inch. They required 28 or 30 inches, that is 2000 tons of water on 1 acre in the year. If they did not get it they went short. (Laughter.) They could easily perceive then that when the Lord kept back the rain the people were brought to their senses and evinced great trouble.

The husband of Naomi belong to one of the foremost families of the land. They were descendants of princes, but notwithstanding that he was compelled to sell. Well Elimelech made up his mind to to leave the country – to leave the land of privilege, light and religion, for the land of Moab. Moab was inhabited by the descendants of Lot – an idolatrous lock, an heathen lot, a cruel lot and an out of the way people. He made up his mind, when he had bettered his circumstances, to return to his native land, but “Man proposes, but God disposes” – he went there, but never came back. It was so even now – a man left his country for some land when he thinks he may better himself, and thinks he will return; but he never does, and as a rule his children take a different course that which their fathers and mothers would like them.

Of course Naomi went with her husband, much as she would not like the idea, but a good wife is forced to do as the husband desired her. (Laughter.) It was not the street, or the Lane, of the town, the house that made a home happy; it was having your dear ones about you, and so Naomi still had her husband with her and her two darling boys. How long they had been in the land of Moab then he (the lecture) did not know, but Elimelech became poorly and got worse and worse and by and by you was confined to his house, and then he was confined to his room, and then by and bye the father, guide, and counsel was taken away.

Think of the loneliness of poor Naomi when she was left with a two dear lads. The lads went there when they were 14. They will be 24 now, and they felt pretty nicely settled. They remembered Israel as a country of famine and were determined not to go back, and then they acted with a very high hand – they fell head over ears in love with two heathen women. (Laughter)

it was done with a very high hand because it was the custom to consult the father and the mother, but they did nothing of the kind. The Isralite custom spoke very strongly against mixed marriages. The corruption of the antediluvian in church and the degeneration of the antediluvian people were ascribed to mixed marriages. Well sometimes they tied their knot with their tongue which they couldn’t loose with their teeth – (laughter) – and people got married in a hurry but repented at their leisure.

Well they got married did these lads, and Naomi became the mother-in-law of Ruth and Oprah. (Laughter) She was a mother-in-law – laughter – people cracked their jokes about mothers-in-law, but Naomi won the affection of their boys and their wives; it was a grand thing when one’s religion told upon people. Then say to say, both Chilion and Marlon died – both of them. Their names signify weakness and sickness and consumption and decline.

Elimelech meant “God is my king,” and Naomi meant “Beautiful and happy.” In those days in giving names they were sometimes inspired, and sometimes names were given on account of striking circumstances. There will be a lot of children called “Jubilee” this year. (Loud laughter.) But the fathers and mothers of the olden times were not all inspired to give their offspring their names. Perhaps in the case of these two lads they might have been weakly little children.

But then they were not always right. Solomon called his son “Rechoboam”, the enlarger. As soon as he got into circuit – (laughter) – he enlarged Israel from 12 down to 2. (New laughter) 10 of the tribes left him. He (the speaker) did not call that enlarging.

But Solomon’s father did no better. David named his son at Absalom, “a fathers peace.” More like a fathers hell on earth, a fathers devil, a son clutching at his father’s sceptre and trying to circumvent his father’s downfall – “a fathers peace.” He was not his “father’s peace;” he was his father’s “devil.” The two sons were both dead now there is a marvellous sight – three widows in one house.

Mr McKenzie then proceeded to refer to the regard the Almighty always had for widows, and singled out many cases from the Old Testament in support of what he said. There was Elijah, who for three years went to live with a widow who had only a barrel of meal and a cruse of oil. But it was enough for them both; they never got into debt with the shopkeepers. (Laughter). Then there was the widow who went to Elijah and told him that they had got nothing else but two quarter pots of oil. She began to clear out the house and made a warehouse of the, then she and the boys fill the house with “empties” – some empty vessels – and got the lads to fill the vessels out of the oil pot. They filled vessel after vessel, and the widow kept the lads sweating at it – “fetch another.” And when all the vessels have been filled one of the lads said “mother, there isn’t another left.” It was on behalf of a widow this was done. Then when our Lord Jesus Christ raised Lazarus, the full widow’s son, they saw the sight of a man walking home from his own funeral. (Laughter.)

The lecturer then related the return journey of Naomi back to Bethlehem, and the determination of Ruth to accompany her. Of course Naomi objected, but Ruth set her mind on going and and so she did. When people have made up their minds they generally do what they want.

The devil never bothers the man who is determined to get to heaven. (Hear, hear) He will say to his imps, leave that fellow alone, don’t lose your time over a fellow like that.” (Laughter).

When Naomi and Ruth reached Bethlehem it was barley harvest and there was such a commotion. The whole place soon got to know that Naomi had come, and turned out to see them. “Naomi, the beautiful,” she was called when she left home, but now she was careworn. He (the lecturer) never knew whether the people did anything particularly for her, but it was usually the case that poor people are kind to each other.

The lecturer then detailed the scenes which took place in the barley field, to which Ruth was invited, and her subsequent meeting with Boaz. He also characteristically dwelt on Naomi’s order to Ruth to go at night and sleep at the foot of Boaz while he slept in the bin. The injunction was that when Boaz woke and found Ruth at his side that she should say that Naomi was next of kin. The old Levitical law was that if a man died and left a widow, his brother should marry her, being next of kin.They would understand then that Naomi, the widow, by telling Boaz that he was her next of kin, was about the same as in England when the ladies say it is leap year. (Laughter.)

Well, when Boaz turned over, he found Ruth by side, and she told him. He said, “All the city know that you are a virtuous woman, and your mother in law is a very kind, good woman, she has made a mistake; I am not the next of kin, there is another before me, but if he doesn’t take the estate and all its appurtenances– (Laughter) – I will do my duty.”

But they were then in the bin, and the wealthy man of Bethlehem would not have it known that there was a lady in the bin with him – (laughter) – no, not for all the farms in Bethlehem. (Renewed laughter.) So he sent her home before the day broke, with six measures of barley.

Then Boaz went down to the gate where there was a court of adjudication and called the next of kin to him and formed the jury, and told them of Naomi’s return, and of Ruth, and asked the next of kin if he was willing to redeem the estate, which Elinelech had left years before. Oh yes, he was quite willing; but when Boaz told him that he would have to redeem the widow as well – oh no; he had one woman already, and he could not have two women in the house together. (Laughter)

Would Boaz kindly redeem the estate for him. Then Boaz called the people to witness, and with inheritance he took Ruth, Mahlon’s wife. Then what a change came for Ruth; she came into the land without sufficient food; now she was the wife of the one of the greatest.

From this Mr McKenzie drew a very interesting moral, In which he pointed out that the true Christian who steadfastly pursued his way should in the end have mansions and everything that was grand in the heavenly home. There was a man who paid £5 into the plate last night, who a few years ago swept out the office; but now he was worth £400,000.

Mr McKenzie concluded his lecture amidst prolonged applause. The collection at the close amounted to £9 10s and this added to the proceeds of the tea, and the collection in the afternoon brought up the total to £21.