point to God as the direct inflicter of the stroke. The four calamities occurring in one day cannot be an accident; the fire from heaven and the wind from beyond the desert cannot be casualties of this world, like the violence of men; and, most indubitable of all, his disease, elephantiasis, is universally regarded as the most dread sign of God's immediate visitation. It is taken for granted by all, Job, his wife, and his friends, that he is for some reason the object of God's wrath. Here, then, is Job's difficulty: God is punishing him, — and for what? He is conscious of no sin to deserve it; his "heart does not reproach one of his days." It is strange that he should perish without knowing his crime; strange, too, that the heavens should be shut to every call of his for explanation. To be so treated is to be shut off from the "friendship of God," which has always been the most cherished blessing of his life. But this is only the beginning of his distress. If he, a righteous man, is treated as if he were wicked, then the world is out of joint; the bounds of right and wrong, of justice and iniquity, are wholly confused; and where is the truth of things? Are the powers that work unseen arrayed after all on the side of evil, and against godliness? Is it falsehood that wins in this universe? Such is the laby

rinth of "dreadful and hideous thoughts through which Job must grope his way to the light.

The course that Job takes is set off very suggestively, by contrast, in the characters of the dramatis persona with whom he is associated.

Of these, the most deeply contrasted to Job Contrast be is Satan, the Accuser, at whose institween Job and Satan. gation the trial of his integrity is made. In studying this character, we need to dismiss from our minds, for the time being, the Satanic traits that come to light in other parts of Scripture, and confine ourselves to the record before us. The being who appears

Satan's character.

here so familiarly among the sons of

God is no Miltonic Satan, no monster of black malignity and unconquerable hatred. The most striking trait of his character seems to be simply restlessness, unquiet. In his "roaming to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it," and in his eagerness to try experiments with Job, we are reminded of that New Testament evil spirit, who being cast out of a man "walketh through

See Luke xi. 24.

dry places, seeking rest." A home

less, unquiet spirit: may we not say, then, that in Satan our author portrays a spirit unanchored to any allegiance, a spirit who has lost his moorings? Being attached to no

Father of spirits, to steady him and give him principle, all his regards centre in self-gratification; having no goal beyond the present, he lives simply to appease the restlessness of the moment. So we find him, naturally enough, a mocking, detracting, reckless, impudent being, observing and criticising all things, yet sympathizing with none, caring for no sufferings, responding to no deep movements of heart, what Goethe calls a "schalk."1 For a being like this, such a thing as disinterested goodness is simply non-existent; he has no faculty to comprehend it. When he asks the sarcastic question, "Doth Job fear God for nought?" and when he lays the wager with God to sever the patriarch from his allegiance, he is merely speaking out of his own shallow selfishness, and interpreting men as good or evil, just as it happens, for a price. In polar contrast to this stands Job. His soul is so deeply anchored to what is good trasted and true that the idea of barter, of work and wages, finds no room in the calculation, nay, so deeply that he is forced to

Job's con

traits.

1 Goethe's imitation of this opening scene of the Book of Job, in his Prologue to Faust, brings out the traits of Satan's character in several suggestive ways, which will be traced more particularly in the notes to this section of the translation.

cut loose from what his friends say of God, to take his life in his hand and remonstrate with God himself, as he looks out on a confused world; and thus, putting uttermost faith in goodness, he "voyages through strange seas of thought alone," finding radiant landing-places of faith one after another, until a new world is discovered in which he comes to see that being anchored to the good and true is being anchored to God after all.

Contrast

and his

the Wisdom

The other contrast is afforded by the friends who come to visit him. They reprebetween Fob sent, with its outcome in character, friends. the kind of philosophy that the whole devout world, Job with the rest, has hitherto held, a philosophy which ages of wisdom and reflection have evolved. A philosophy, moreover, that through a long period of The friends advocates of national prosperity has crystallized philosophy into a very comfortable and convelow, pp. 92, nient creed, well adapted to fair weather and to the routines of life. That God deals with men by an unchanging and in the main calculable law, good receiving its sure reward in prosperity, wickedness receiving its unfailing desert in woe, - this we may depend upon as the principle on which to build our life. It is a good belief by which to key men up to law and duty, a very effectual

compare be

But the fierce

Job takes issue with the Wisdom

police regulation for the world. light of Job's affliction, so strange and undeserved, opens his eyes to see in this philosophy imperfections hitherto doctrine. unsuspected. First of all he sees that it rests. on an incomplete induction of facts: for there are afflicted righteous, he is one, — and there are unpunished wicked, filling the land with their evil deeds. Then, secondly, and here is where his self-forgetting integrity evinces its insight, he sees that this belief may be so held, nay, is actually so held by these very friends, as to become merely a refined sort of work-and-wages theory. Serve God, and you will prosper; if woes come, betokening God's displeasure, turn to God anew, and prosper again. If this were all,—and it very nearly sums up the friends' creed, we might with only too much reason ask, Does such a believer fear God for nought? But to Job's quickened spiritual sense this is not all. The old imperfect wisdom must be lifted to a higher than worldly plane. In the black shadows that surround him come flashes of unspeakable things, new resting-places for faith, truths that the unchastened soul cannot appreciate. Here, then, is the contrast: the friends, who have never been quickened by suffering, are conventional, speculative believers, their God a tradi