of a perfect man," the very paragon of his age," "without his peer in all the earth." His outward conditions are large and prosperous: he has seven sons and three daughters, who seem to have been not unworthy of even such a father as he, and are united to each other, and to him, by a singularly close and cordial attachment. He is not a nomad, but a settled and wealthy landed proprietor, with a vast estate and immense possessions, and he is recognized as "the greatest of the Sons of the East," probably that is, as the wisest and noblest, as well as the wealthiest, man of his age. So far he presents that combination of personal goodness with happy outward conditions which the ancients regarded as the normal and invariable result of the righteous rule of God. Such a combination, however, was sure to give rise, sooner or later, to the suspicion that the goodness which had prosperity for its result might also have it for its motive; that the righteousness even of the best of men might prove to be only a subtle and refined selfishness. this question might be raised in its most searching and crucial form, and answered in a manner the most complete, authoritative, final, it is carried up into heaven, where alone the profound mysteries of life can be adequately handled; and it is argued out

That

-nay, fought out there. A fallen angel, a "son of God," who has sunk from his first estate, challenges the reality of human goodness: "Is it for nought that Job fears God? Is not his piety simply a matter of profit and loss?

Does he not do

right only for the gain he may get thereby? Take away the gain, and what will become of his good

ness?" Confident in the sincerity of his servant Job, assured that he at least is not one of those—

"Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,"

Jehovah accepts the challenge. He consents that Job shall be stripped of all that he has; that all his gains shall be taken from him, and only his goodness left. Nor need any man question either the justice or the kindness of God in exposing him to what seems so cruel an experiment. The path of danger is the path of honour. Could Job have

known, as Jehovah did know, that he was being put to the proof in order both that all the hierarchy of heaven might be convinced of man's capacity for a sincere and genuine piety, and that all subsequent generations of men, looking back on the trial of his faith, might find it pregnant with incentives to courage, and patience, and hopecould he have foreseen this "end of the Lord," we may be very sure he would have rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer for an end so large and so noble.

That, however, he did not, and could not, know. Nevertheless "he endured," and entered into the blessedness of the man who, when tried, is found constant. Deprived of flocks and herds, his faithful servants and his loving children, in a single day; deprived of them with a suddenness and in forms which would inevitably mark him out as a man "smitten of God and afflicted," he nevertheless retained his integrity, and possessed his soul in

patience. So far from renouncing God because his gains were gone,

" and all

That made him happy at one stroke was taken

For ever from the world,"

he fell on his face before Him and worshipped Him. The Adversary has only one device left; for, among other features which distinguish the "Adversary" of this Poem from the "Satan" of later inspired authors is the fact that he is represented as using only outward means, that he has no recourse to those inward spiritual suggestions by which we are most keenly tempted; these are left to the wife of Job and his friends. Job has lost much, but not all his health remains, and, with his health, the possibility of recovering what he has lost. Of this too, therefore, Satan seeks, and is permitted, to despoil him. He smites Job with the most loathsome and monstrous form of disease known among men, a form, too, which was universally regarded as the revenge taken by an insulted Heaven on some heinous and enormous sin. And now, in the fullest and extremest sense, Job is stripped of all that he had gained by loving and serving God; nay, and even to his own mind, he is stripped of it by the very hand of God Himself. Nevertheless, he submits without a murmur, as who should say,

"Nay, I will be the pattern of all patience;

I will say nothing,"

and shews himself as ready to accept evil from the hand of the Lord as good. His very wife turns upon him, and counsels him to utter the exact

words which Satan had flattered himself that he could wring from his lips (comp. Chap. i. 11, final clause, with final clause of Chap. ii. 9). And, still, Job sinned not with his lips. True, a curse does fly from them at last; the silent sympathy of the Friends evokes from him what no pressure of loss and misery could extort from his constant soul: but when he opens his lips he curses,-not God, but himself and the day which gave him birth.

Jehovah, then, has already gained the victory over the Adversary. Satan has exhausted his resources; he has nothing more that he can do; and he sullenly acknowledges his defeat by flight. His baneful figure vanishes from the Poem. We see him no more; no, not even at the end of the Drama, when the other persons of the Story come forward to receive the final sentence of Jehovah. For God and for us, to heaven and to earth, the patient Job has demonstrated that a genuine and unselfish goodness, a goodness which can not only dispense with reward but can also endure every form of loss, indignity, pain, is possible to man even here upon the earth and under the inauspicious conditions of time.

CHAPTER I.-There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Fob. This man was perfect and upright, and one who feared God and eschewed evil. 2. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. 3. His cattle also were seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and [he had] a very large household; so that this man was great before all the Sons of the East.

4. Now his sons were wont to make a banquet each of them at his house on his day; and they used to send and bid their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. 5. And so it was, when the days of the banquet had gone round, Fob sent for them, and hallowed

them; and he gat him up early in the morning, and offered up burnt offerings according to their number: for Fob said, Haply, my sons have sinned and renounced God in their hearts. did Fob alway.

Thus

6. Now it happened on a day, when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, that Satan also came among them. 7. And the Lord said to Satan, Whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord and said, From hurrying to and fro in the earth, and from going up and down in it. 8. Then said the Lord to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Fob? for there is none like him on the earth, a perfect man and an upright, one that feareth God and escheweth evil. 9. And Satan answered the Lord and said, Is it for nought that Fob feareth God? 10. Thou, hast Thou not made a fence round him, and round his house, and round all that he hath ? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his cattle spread themselves abroad over the land. 11. But only put forth Thine hand and touch all that he hath,' [and then see] if he will not renounce Thee to Thy face. 12. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thine hand; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

13. Now it happened on a day, when his sons and his daughters were eating, and drinking wine, in the house of their brother the first born, (14) there came a messenger to Fob and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses grazing close by, (15) when the Sabæans fell upon them, and carried them off; and they smote the young men with the edge of the sword; and I am escaped, even I alone, to tell thee. 16. While he was yet speaking, there came another, and said, A fire of God fell from heaven, and burned the flocks and the young men, and consumed them; and I am escaped, even I alone, to tell thee.

The ellipsis of verse 11 requires to be filled up with some such words as "and see," or, "then see." Similar ellipses are not uncommon in Oriental literature. Thus in the Corân we read (Sura xxv. verses 9 and 22): "They say, What sort of apostle is this? He eateth food and walketh the streets. Unless an angel be sent down and take part in his warnings, or a treasure be thrown down to him, or he have a garden that supplieth him with food, persons say, Ye follow but a man enchanted." who look not forward to meet us say, If the down to us, or unless we behold our Lord. . . . Ah, they are proud of heart, and exceed with great excess." In each of these cases we must supply the words "we will not believe,” in order to complete the sense. Many such ellipses may be found in the Corân alone.

and these unjust And again: "They angels be not sent