and doing what the deepest genius of the work requires.

A glance at

chanical in

It is no part of my present plan to enumerate the theories, sometimes sometimes grocertain me- tesquely far-fetched, that have been terpreta- imposed on this long-suffering Book tions. of Job. Nor need I stay to describe at length the arithmetical style of interpretation, which works out the poem's problem, so to say, by the rule of three; laboriously computing the three sections of the book, the three parts of the poem proper, the three cycles of speeches, the three pairs in each cycle, the three discourses of Elihu,' the three strophes in many of the speeches, and the three temptations of Job. On this line of exfect the parts position the tendency, already menof the poem. tioned, to assign one of Job's speeches to Zophar is augmented by the fact that thereby the third round of debate and the three-times-three speeches of Job and his friends are charmingly completed; and poor Elihu's tenure is made more precarious by the fact, forsooth, that he is a fourth speaker, who comes unintroduced by the Prologue. All this seems to me the sad result of trying to stretch a living poem on the Procrustean rack of a

How they af

1 So reckoned, I suppose, in order to preserve the general symmetry; though as matter of fact Elihu speaks four times.

dead, mechanical plan. I ought not, perhaps, to pass over Elihu with such slight notice here, seeing that just now in the critical realm he is everywhere spoken against; nor would I venture to leave him thus did I not hope to make clear by and by that the poem, as it now stands, has an artistic unity obvious enough to reconcile him fully to his place.

Wherein centres the

artistic uni

poem.

For an artistic unity the poem certainly has; let not the foregoing criticisms be taken as urged against that fact; a unity more comprehensive and poetic, and at the same time not less absolute, than could be obtained on the lines I have described. Only, that unity centres in a person rather ty of the than in a system of thought or reasoning; it is Job himself, the man Job, with his bewilderment of doubt, his utter honesty with himself and the world, his outreaching faith, his loyalty through all darkness and mystery to what is Godlike, who is the solution of the Jobproblem, far more truly than Job's words, or the words of Elihu, or the august address from the whirlwind. How God deals with men, and how men may interpret his dealings; why God sees fit to afflict the righteous; these are indeed important questions, and not to be ignored; but more vital still is the question what Job is, becomes, achieves, in the fiery

trial of God's unexplained visitation. In the answer to that personal question lies the supreme answer to all the rest. It is not a mere author that we find here, but a man. And as we trace the progress of Job's soul, step by step, revealed to us through his own words and through the attacks of his friends, we shall be brought to a contemplation of greatness in life and character such as, for sublimity, it will be hard to parallel in literature, however highly we may value the divinest creations of an Æschylus or a Milton.

Thus, in the person and spiritual history of Job, we are brought back to the nar

How this does justice

to the narra

rative basis which, so long as we contive element. sider only the discourses of the poem, we are in danger of ignoring. Under these discourses we are to trace not the building of a system, but the progress of a character, tried, developed, victorious; for they reveal how the patriarch works out, or perhaps we may better say embodies, the solution of a great problem.

Statement of the Jobproblem.

What, then, is the problem, if such is its solution? We need not look far for the answer to this question. The problem, propounded by Satan at the outset, and tested by permission of Jehovah, is, "Doth Job fear God for nought?" This is, of course, the sneer of utter selfishness against all that

swers to the

it was pro

is loyal and disinterested: it asks, in effect, Is there such a thing as whole - souled, self-for getting service of God, just for His sake and for righteousness' sake? Nor is such a question, we must admit, very strange in a world where the fear of God is regarded as the sure road to worldly prosperity. Where How it an such an idea prevails it is quite possi- age in which ble for piety to become, to all intents pounded. and purposes, merely a refined selfishness; how can we tell from the outside whether it is serving God for His sake or because such service is a paying investment? Yes: there is a place in history where the question just fits in; Satan has found the weak point in that Old Testament standard of piety and its reward. And Job's life, as it is traced in the glowing, indignant, faith-inspired words of his complaint, is the triumphant answer. How Job Job does fear God for nought: that solves it. is, his integrity is no vulgar barter for wages, as Satan supposes, but deeply founded in the truth of things, so deeply that he takes leave of friends, of family, of life, nay, of God himself, as he has hitherto regarded God, in order to be true. And if Job, a man like ourselves, has wrought out the answer, then the answer exists in humanity. There is such a thing as disinterested piety, and it contains

whole worlds of faith and insight. Or, to gather the history before us into a sentence: THERE IS A SERVICE oF GOD WHICH IS NOT

The solution expressed in a proposition.

WORK FOR REWARD: IT IS A HEARTLOYALTY, A HUNGER AFTER GOD'S PRESENCE, WHICH SURVIVES LOSS AND CHASTISEMENT; WHICH IN SPITE OF CONTRADICTORY SEEMING CLEAVES TO WHAT IS GODLIKE AS THE NEEDLE SEEKS THE POLE; AND WHICH REACHES UP OUT OF THE DARKNESS AND HARDNESS OF THIS LIFE TO THE LIGHT AND

LOVE BEYOND.

This, if we must chill it down from the glow, of its personal and poetic utterance to a generalization, is what, as I conceive, the Book of Job stands for. But of this answer, as of the problem, the hero is as little aware as the rest. Wrought out in darkness and anguish, it is known only to those celestial spectators who rejoice, and to that scoffing spirit who is discomfited by it. For the answer is not put in words, nor made a didactic issue: it is lived.

erary class,

II.

If, then, this poem centres in a hero, whose II. Its lit spiritual achievements it makes known the Epic. to us, we have thus indicated the literary class to which it is to be predominantly assigned. I regard this ancient book as the