him: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, fearing God and avoiding evil?" Satan answering said: "Doth Job serve God in vain? Hast thou not blessed the works of his hands, and increased his possessions upon the earth? But put forth thine hand and touch all that he hath, and see if he will not curse thee to thy face." And the Lord said to Satan: "Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand, only touch not thou his life." And Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

Upon a certain day, when his sons and daughters were feasting in the house of their eldest brother, there came a messenger to Job, and said: The oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabæans rushed in and took all away, slaying the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell thee." As he was speaking, another came and said: "The fire of God is fallen upon the sheep, and hath consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell thee." A third messenger came and said that the Chaldeans had come and fallen upon the camels and the servants, and that he alone had escaped to bring word. As he was still speaking, a fourth came and said: "Thy sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their elder brother, and a violent wind came on a sudden from the side of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, and it fell upon thy children, and they are dead."

Then Job rose up, and rent his garments, and having shaven his head, fell down upon the ground and worshipped, and said:-"Naked came I out of my

mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord!"

Job's trials were not over: Satan was permitted to strike Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the feet even to the top of his head, so that he took a potsherd and scraped himself, sitting on a

dunghill. And his wife said to him: "Dost thou continue in thy simplicity? Curse God, and die!" And Job said to her: "Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women; if we have received good things at the hands of God, why should we not receive evil?"

Job had three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Baldad the Shuhite, and Sophar the Naamathite, who, hearing of the evil that had befallen him, made an appointment to come together to visit him and comfort him. And when they had lifted up their eyes afar off, they knew him not, and crying out they wept, and rending their garments they sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no man spoke to him a word: for they saw that his grief was very great.

Job at length gave utterance to his grief: "Let the day perish wherein I was born; let it be turned into darkness: let not God regard it from above, and let not the light shine upon it. Why did I not die in the womb? Why was I nursed upon the knees? And why was I suckled at the breast? for now I should have been asleep and still. Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to them that are in bitterness of soul?"

Job's friends, instead of consoling him and helping him to bear his calamity, each in succession attempt to prove to him, that afflictions and sufferings are always the punishment of sins; and they insist in a most harsh and unfeeling manner, that he should confess himself to have been guilty, and to have brought all his suffer

ings upon himself by his own fault. Job as stoutly asserts his innocence, and calls God to be the witness of his uprightness. When I went out to the gate of the city," exclaims Job, "the young men saw me and

hid themselves, the old men rose up and stood; the ear that heard me blessed me, and the eye that saw me

EXPLANATION OF THE TYPE OF JOB.-Job is a type of our suffering Redeemer, not only in the circumstance that he was subjected to the power of Satan to afflict

gave witness to me; the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I comforted the heart of the widow; I was clad with justice, and I clothed myself with my judgment as with a rose and a diadem; I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame; I was the father of the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out most diligently; I broke the jaws of the wicked, and out of their teeth I took away the prey; and I was a comforter of them that mourned. But now the younger men scorn me, whose fathers I would not have set with the dogs of my flock; I am turned into their song, and am become their byeword; for God hath opened His quiver and hath afflicted me, and hath put a bridle in my mouth; I am brought to nothing; as a wind thou hast taken away my desire, and my prosperity hath passed away like a cloud. And now my soul fadeth within myself, and the days of affliction possess me. I am become the brother of dragons and the companion of ostriches."

Thus Job justified himself against the accusations of his three friends, who ceased to answer him, because he seemed just to himself. On their ceasing to speak, a fourth friend, Elihu by name, who had been patiently listening, begins to address Job, in much the same strain, on the impropriety of his justifying himself. "For Job hath said, I am just, and God hath over

and render him an object of contempt, but in the circumstance that those who ought to have been his friends turned against him. Our Lord said to the Chief Priests who came to seize him: "This is your hour and the power of darkness;" and Job had to say in vain: "Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me. You set yourselves against me, and confound me with reproaches."