disciplinary, not punitive. As vines bear the better for bleeding, and flowers emit a more delicious aroma after having been pelted with the rain, so will the true soul improve by afflictions. A blind man once said to Rev. C. Simeon, “I never saw till I was blind;" by which he meant that his affliction opened the eyes of his soul. An old writer has said, there is " as much difference between the sufferings of the saints and those of the ungodly, as between the cords with which an executioner pinions a condemned malefactor and the bandage with which a surgeon binds up his patient's wounds." As the frosty winds of winter kill pernicious vermin and grubs, so afflictions to the good tend to destroy the depravities of the heart.

"Suffering curbs our wayward passions,
Childlike tempers in us fashions,

And our will to His subdues:
Thus His hand, so soft and healing,
Each disordered power and feeling
By a blessed change renews.

"Suffering keeps the thoughts compacted,
That the soul be not distracted
By the world's beguiling art;
'Tis like some angelic warder,
Ever keeping sacred order

In the chambers of the heart.

"Suffering tunes the heart's emotion
To eternity's devotion,

And awakes a fond desire

For the land where psalms are ringing,

And with psalms the martyrs singing

Sweetly to the harper's choir."-J. Hartmann.

L

HOMILY No. XXVIII.

JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD.

(2.) HIS LANGUAGE TO THE ETERNAL. (b) CONCERNING HIS SUFFERINGS. (Continued.)

"Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!" &c.—CHAP. x. 18-22.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS. Ver. 18.

Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!" Language very similar to this, and identical in spirit, we found in chapter iii. 11, 12.

Ver. 19.-"I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave." How strongly does the patriarch here deplore the fact of his existence !

Ver. 20.-"Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little." The idea here seems to be, as my life is so short, let not the whole of the brief space be spent in

suffering, let there be a little comfort.

Vers. 21, 22.-" Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death," &c. I have seen no translation that is more true to the original or more forceful than this version. The patriarch struggles after the strongest language to express his impression of the deep darkness prevailing in the under world. Milton's language is strong, but scarcely so strong as this, "No light, but rather darkness visible." "Without any order." Having no arrangements, no distinction of inhabitants, poor and rich, master and slave, king and beggar, all are there equal.

HOMILETICS.—The patriarch had already in the previous verses expressed to the Almighty that his sufferings were too great to render any efforts at self-consolation effective, too deserved to justify any hope of relief, too overwhelming to check the expression of his complaint, and now as too crushing to give to existence anything but an intolerable curse. His sufferings, judging from his language here, had destroyed within him for a time three of the primary instincts of the soul-a sense of duty, love of life, and hope of a hereafter.

I. A SENSE OF DUTY. Sense of obligation to the Supreme

is an instinct as universal as man, as deep as life itself; but Job, in wishing that he had never been, or that his first breath had been extinguished, for the moment lost all feeling in relation to the wonderful mercies which his Creator had conferred upon him during the past years of his existence. What were those mercies? (1) Great material wealth. So far as wealth was concerned, for years he had been "the greatest of all the men of the East." No doubt this affluent man drew from his worldly possessions many and varied enjoyments. (2) Great domestic enjoyment. He had seven sons and three daughters. As in the case of most children, their conduct might at times grieve his heart, and awaken anxieties. But what would such be, compared with the sweet pleasures he would experience from mingling in their little sports, watching the unfoldment of their faculties, receiving their filial devotions, and anticipating for them a bright and prosperous future? (3) Immense social influence. He not only obtained vast power over his contemporaries, but a power that awakened within them the deepest sympathies of grateful love and high devotion. When he walked through the city, the young men hid themselves, "the aged arose and stood up; the princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth; the nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. What high enjoyment must he have derived from breathing in a social atmosphere balmy and sunny with the love of all around him.

Now, in saying to the Almighty, "Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?" he seems utterly oblivious of all these mercies which heaven had so abundantly showered on his path for so many years. No sense of gratitude stirred within him. It is often thus with man. He forgets a long life of enjoyment in a few days or weeks of suffering, and the song of gratitude is drowned in the roar of discontent. As the old retired mariner thinks and talks more of one shipwreck than of all the propitious years of his happy journeyings on the sea, so man in one brief week of sorrow and suffering ignores all his former years of health and joy. Another instinct which Job's sufferings seemed for a time to have overborne is—

II. A LOVE OF LIFE. "Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Seldom do we find, even amongst the most miserable of men, one who struggles not to perpetuate his existence. "What thinkest thou," said Socrates to Aristodemus, "of this continual love of life, this dread of dissolution which takes possession of us the moment we are conscious of existence ?" "I think of it," was the reply, "as the means employed by the same great and wise Artist, deliberately determined to preserve what He has made." But this instinct Job now seems to have lost if not its entire existence, its power. He desires extinction. Existence has become so intolerable that he wishes he had never had it, and yearns for annihilation. Two thoughts are here suggested. First: There may be something worse for man than annihilation. Death is felt the world over to be the king of terrors; the heart of humanity recoils with horror at his presence, and quivers with agony under his dark shadow; still there may be something worse. Man is capable of sinking into a condition of existence here, where he shall hail death as a welcome guest. Secondly: This annihilation is beyond the reach of creatures. None but God can absolutely destroy. Has He ever destroyed a man? will He ever do it? Another instinct which Job's sufferings seems to have subdued for a time is

III. HOPE OF A HEREAFTER. Hope is an instinct of the soul. "Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts." This is an instinct which keeps the soul of the world ever toward a future; nay, which bears it into a hereafter, and gives it a beatified life. Indeed it is one of those powers within us that, like a mainspring, keeps every wheel in action." Man never is, but always to be, blest. We bathe our weary natures in the balmy seas which hope has created. Job seems to have lost this now. Hence his

description of the future. "Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.' He saw a future, but what was it? (1) Darkness.

A

starless, moonless midnight, a vast immeasurable abyssthe land of darkness." His hereafter was black, not a ray of light streamed from the firmament. (2) Confusion. "Without any order." Small and great, young and old, all together in black chaos. From this state of dark confusion into which he was going, he felt he should "not return.” There is no return from the great under-world.

CONCLUSION.-Learn, First: That great suffering in this world, in the case of individuals, does not mean great sin. Job's sufferings were inexpressibly great, yet on the whole he was a "just" man and " upright," one that "feared God" and "eschewed evil." Learn, Secondly: The power of the devil over man. Whence came all these sufferings? "And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life." The devil plays sad havoc with human nature when the Eternal permits him. Behold the "works of the devil" in Job, for the moment crushing the strongest instincts of the soul, the sense of duty, the love of life, and the hope of a hereafter! Learn, Thirdly: The value of the Gospel. This man had no clear revelation of a blessed future. Hence one scarcely wonders at his frequent and impassioned complaints. How different our life to his! The grave does not bound our horizon, the brighter and the wider regions of life loom beyond.

"A change from woe to joy, from earth to heaven!
Death gives me this: it leads me calmly where
The souls that long ago from mine were riven
May meet again! Death answers many a prayer.
Bright day, shine on, be glad! days brighter far

Are stretched before mine eyes than those of mortals are."

Robert Nicoll.