Excerpt from A Series of Tracts on the Doctrines, Order, and Polity of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Vol. 6: Embracing Several on Practical Subjects The wisdom of God is often remarkably displayed in over ruling the errors and sins of men so as to accomplish his own ends. Elimelech, a man of the tribe of Judah, and an inhabitant of Bethlehem, who lived in the time of the Judges, was induced by the existence or prospect of want, to emi grate from the Holy Land and settle in Moab, with his wife and two sons. The course which he pursued cannot be jus tified. He seems to have been a man in good circumstances, for his wife Naomi said on her return, I went out full, and certainly his condition during the famine would not have been worse than that of many others who remained. But it was especially deserving of censure that he chose for his resi dence a country where the true God was not known, and where idolatry of the Worst kind prevailed. The result answered to the rashness of his conduct. Death, from which he fled, overtook him in a strange land, where the usual helps and means of piety were wanting. His sons, as might have been anticipated, took wives from the daughters of Moab, by which their integrity must have been greatly en dangered and their temptations increased, and by which their return to Canaan was rendered more difficult. Indeed, it was determined that they never should return, for they both died shortly, and without children. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.