much truth in this conception, though not the whole truth. Unquestionably the Book of Job does shew, in the most tragic and pathetic way, that good, no less than wicked, men lie open to the most cruel losses and sorrows; that these losses and sorrows are not always signs of the Divine anger against sin; that they are intended to correct and perfect the righteousness of the righteous, or, in our Lord's figure, that they are designed to purge the trees which already bear good fruit, in order that they may bring forth more fruit.

But, after all, can it be the main and ruling intention of the Book to teach us that noble lesson ? When we follow the Story to its close, do we not see that "the Lord gave to Job twice as much as he had before"? And, might we not fairly infer from the Story, as a whole, that the formula of Job's Friends was not so much too narrow as it is commonly held to be? that it might very easily be stretched till it covered the new fact? that where they were wrong was in assuming that happy outward conditions are the immediate result of obeying the Divine Law, and miserable outward conditions the immediate result of violating that Law? that, had they only affirmed that in the long run righteousness always conducts a man to prosperity and sin to adversity, they would have been sufficiently near the mark?

Even in our own day, Mr. Matthew Arnold-not a bigot surely, nor at all disposed to stand up for theological dogmas against verified facts-has affirmed and argued for this very conception: he has affirmed and re-affirmed it to be well-nigh impossible to escape the conviction that "the stream of tendency" is in

favour of those who do well and adverse to those who do ill. And though some of us might word the proposition differently, yet he would betray a singular dulness or hardihood who should venture to question the main tenour and drift of it. The facts of history, experience, consciousness, compel us to believe that, in the long run, though we may admit that the run is often very long, and that we do not see the end of it here-happy and auspicious conditions are vouchsafed to men, or to nations, who follow after righteousness, while those who walk in unrighteousness are overtaken by miserable and inauspicious conditions. Job was righteous. Did he suffer for his righteousness? Nay, but rather he suffered that he might be made more righteous; that he might learn to trust in God when all things were against him, when even God Himself seemed to be against him, as well as when all things went to his mind; he suffered in order that he might learn that his very righteousness was not his own in any sense which would warrant him in claiming it and in taking his stand upon it as against God: and, when he was thus stablished and perfected in righteousness, the stream of prosperity flowed back upon him in double tide.

We cannot, therefore, accept the popular conception of the meaning and intention of this great Poem as adequate and satisfactory. There is a higher and a far more gracious meaning in it, which rules and over-rules this lower meaning: and this higher intentention is expressly stated in the Prologue. When the Poem opens Job stands before us "perfect," ie. single-hearted and sincere, without duplicity or hypocrisy and "upright," fearing God and eschewing

evil. He is an Arab sheikh, or chieftain, of immense wealth, the richest as well as the best and wisest man of his race:

"A creature such

As to seek through the regions of the earth
For one his like, there would be something failing
In him that should compare. I do not think
So fair an outward and such stuff within
Endows a man but he."

He is the priest of his family, if not of his clan. Unconscious of iniquity in himself, fearing nothing for his sons but that in the gaiety of their hearts they may have momentarily forgotten God, he nevertheless offers a weekly sacrifice in atonement of their possible sins. Over and around this good man, standing full in the sunshine, the dark clouds. gather and roll; the lightnings leap out and strike down all that he has, all that he loves: for many days neither sun nor stars appear, the tempest beats him down till all hope that he will be saved seems taken away; but, at last, the clouds clear off, the sun shines forth with redoubled splendour, and we leave him a wealthier, better, wiser man than he was even at the first.

Now if we could see nothing but the earth on which he stood, and the sky which alternately frowned and smiled above his head, we might be unable to seize the moral and intention of the scene; we we might reasonably doubt whether the Poem was designed to teach us more than that, as righteousness conducts men to prosperity, so a tried and constant righteousness conducts them to a more stable and a more ample prosperity. But a door is opened into Heaven, and we are

permitted to enter and "assist" at a celestial divan, a council to which God summons all the ministers of his kingly state. The King sits on the throne; his ministers gather round him and sit in session : among them appears a spirit, here simply named the "Adversary," or the "Accuser," whose function is to scrutinize the actions of men, to present them in their worst aspect, that they may be thoroughly sifted and explored. He himself has sunk into an evil condition, for he delights in making even good men seem bad, in fitting good deeds with evil motives. Self is his centre, not God; and he suspects all the world of a selfishness like his own. He cannot, or will not, believe in an unselfish, a disinterested goodness. When Jehovah challenges him to find a fault in Job, he boldly challenges Jehovah to put Job to the proof, and avows beforehand his conviction that it will be found that Job has served God only for what he could gain thereby. This challenge, as Godet has been quick to observe, does not merely affect the character of man it touches the very honour of God Himself: "for if the most pious of mankind is incapable of loving God gratuitously-that is, really, it follows that God is incapable of making Himself loved." And, "as no one is honoured except in so far as he is loved," by this malignant aspersion the Adversary really assails the very heart and crown of the Master of the universe. Jehovah, therefore, takes up the challenge, and Himself enters the lists against the Adversary: Jehovah undertaking to prove that man is capable of a real and disinterested goodness, Satan undertaking to prove

that the goodness of man is but a veiled selfishness; and the heart of Job is to be the arena of the strife.

Now it is not necessary that we should believe that such a scene as this actually took place, that such a Celestial Divan was held, that such a challenge was given and accepted. All this may be only the dramatic form in which the Poet clothed certain spiritual facts and convictions; though, on the other hand, we know too little of the spiritual world to deny that a transaction occurred in it which can only be rendered to human thought by such words and figures as the Poet employs. But we should miss the very intention of this inspired Teacher if we did. not infer from his "scene in heaven some such spiritual verities as these: that there is a Good and Supreme Spirit, who is ever seeking to promote the true welfare of men; that there is an evil spirit, who is ever seeking to deprave men and dishonour them; that even this evil spirit is under law to God, and is used by God to promote the ultimate welfare of men, and that, "somehow, good is to be the end of ill.” Such a conception of the function of the spirit of all ill runs right in the teeth of the modern sceptical suggestion, which, admitting that the plan of the great Architect of the universe may have been divinely wise, contends that somehow the devilan independent spirit well-nigh as powerful as the Creator Himself " contrived to become clerk of the works, and has put in a good deal which was not included in the original specification:" even as it also runs straight in the teeth of those who deny the existence of an evil spirit, and of those who fear that evil is too strong to be utterly overcome by good.