CONCLUSION.-Learn

First: The worthlessness of mere social fame. Here is a man who in his prosperity was universally honoured, by the princes and nobles, the young and the old, the rich and the poor. His praises were on the lips of all. Hosanna sounded everywhere on his ears as he moved amongst men. But now that he has fallen from his high secular position, sunk down into the realm of deep poverty and sore suffering, he becomes an object of social derision. "He is a byword and a song." Social fame! what is it worth? Nothing. Its breath of favour is more fickle than the wind. The social magnate at whose feet the rabble cringe and fawn to-day, will to-morrow, if adversity strike him down into the cold regions of want and obscurity, hoot at him with derision, or treat him with a heartless indifference.

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"Fame! What is that, if courted for herself?

Less than a vision; a mere sound, an echo

That calls with mimic voice, through woods and labyrinths,
Her cheated lovers, lost and heard by fits,

But never fixed: a sunny nymph, yet nothing."

Secondly: The moral heroism of the world's Redeemer. Christ came into a social position far more heartless and insolent than that which the patriarch here describes. "Of the people there was none with Him, He was despised and rejected of men." Social insolence spat in His face, mocked Him with a crown and a purple robe, wagged their heads at Him, and in derision hooted out," Hail, King of the Jews." Yet how did He endure it? "When He was reviled, He reviled not again." Nay, with the insolent rabble shouting in derision around His cross, He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Thus He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself. This is heroism indeed! Such heroism as the world had never seen before, and such that the world wants in order that it may be raised and ennobled. Learn

Thirdly: The importance of habitual reliance on the Absolute. Do not trust in man. Court not public favour. "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man." Let the soul rely habitually upon those eternal principles of truth which are the foundations of that kingdom that cannot be moved; above

all, upon that God which is an immovable rock, amidst all the surging seas of change. Such habitual reliance as this is at once the imperial duty and urgent necessity for every man to cultivate. With this a man can treat all the insolence of the world as the lark in high heaven treats the barkings of the miserable cur that has roused it from its little nest.

HOMILY No. LX.

JOB'S REPLY TO HIS FRIENDS IN GENERAL.

JOB'S SUFFERINGS (Continued).

(2.) PHYSICAL.

"And now my soul is poured out upon me;" &c.—CHAP. XXX. 16-19.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS. Job, having given a sad description of the social sufferings he endured from the most contemptible creatures of his times, recommences further details of his personal afflictions.

Ver. 16.-" And now my soul is poured out upon me." "Poured out within me." Noyes tells us that the Arabs style a fearful person as one who has a watery heart, or one whose heart melts away like water. Job means, My sufferings exhaust me, my life is ebbing away. "The days of affliction have taken hold upon me." The days of suffering hold me fast.

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Ver. 17.-" My bones are pierced in me in the night season." Translate "The night has pierced my bones, so that they are no more in me," i. e. they are dissolved, fall away from me. "And those that

Ver. 18.-" By the great force of my disease is my garment changed." Perhaps he means, that numberless ulcers, with which he was covered from head to foot, made his garments stick so firmly to his body that their removal was effected with difficulty and excruciating pain.

Ver. 19.-" He hath cast me into the mire." He, that is, God, who is here poetically represented as doing that which the mourner had done to himself. "He took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal and he sat down among the ashes" (chap. ii. 8). "I am become like dust and ashes." I am in appearance become like dust and ashes.

HOMILETICS.—In these verses the patriarch sketches his great corporeal sufferings, his physical anguish. Probably man's capability of bodily suffering is greater than that of

any

other animal existence. His nerves are more tender, his organization is more exquisite and complicated. Strange, that a creature made in the image of God, the spiritual offspring of the eternal Father of love, should be, of all suffering creatures of the earth, the greatest sufferer! And yet not strange; for it should be remembered that his sufferings are not ends, but means, and designed and fitted for his moral improvement and ultimate perfection. We may offer the following remarks on man's physical suffering

I. It tends to stimulate INTELLECTUAL RESEARCH. "Pain," says a modern author, "has been the means of increasing our knowledge, our skill, and our comforts. Look to the discoveries made in science-in botany, in chemistry, in anatomy: what a knowledge have we gained of the structures and uses of plants, while we were seeking some herb to soothe pain or cure disease! What a knowledge have we gained of drugs, and salts, and earths, useful for agriculture or for the fine arts, while we have been seeking only to find an ointment or a medicine! We have sought a draught to allay the burning thirst of a fever, and we have found a dozen delicious beverages to drink for our pleasure or relief. We studied anatomy to find out the seat of disease, and how to attack it, and we found what we did not seek—a thousand wonderful works of God, a thousand most curious contrivances, most admirable delights! We found a model for the ribs of a ship; we found a pattern. of a telescope in the eye; we found joints and straps, knittings and valves, which have been copied into the workshop of the mechanic and the study of the philosopher. Yes, we may thank our liability to pain for this-for if pain had not existed, who can tell whether these things would have been so soon, if at all, discovered." Pain whips the intellect into action, sends it abroad to explore the fields of natural history, botany, chemistry, &c. Suffering is advantageous to man as an intellectual being. We know of no service which it can render to the brute.

It does not whet

the instincts or make the faculties of its animal soul more active or vigorous.

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II. It tends to heighten man's ESTIMATE OF DIVINE GOODNESS. The physical sufferings of men, however aggravated and extensive, are not the law of human life, but the exception. They are but a few discordant notes in the general harmony of his existence, a few stormy days and nights in his voyage through life. Suffering being the exception in human life, it brings out more prominently and impressively God's goodness in the general health and happiness of mankind. As the deformities in nature set off its beauties and sublimities in more striking aspects, so the evils which men endure manifest more gloriously the abundant blessings they enjoy. When we visit the asylums of the blind, are we not impressed with the wonderful goodness of God in giving sight to the millions? Or when we visit the asylums of the maniacs, are we not impressed with the goodness of God in favouring the teeming myriads of mankind with the glorious light of intelligence? We appreciate the dawning of the morning because we have struggled fiercely with difficulties in the night. We appreciate the full flow of health because we have felt the torture of disease. Inasmuch, therefore, as human suffering, which is an exception in the general life of mankind, helps to heighten our estimate of God's goodness to our race, it is anything but an unmitigated evil. Nay, it is a blessing in disguise.

III. It tends to IMPROVE OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE. Physical sufferings have led many a man to a train of spiritual reflections that have resulted in the moral salvation of the soul. Physical blindness has often led to spiritual vision, physical suffering to spiritual health. Physical suffering has called many a prodigal home from the far country to his Father's house. Sir Walter Scott has well said, that "There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and tempest; and there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those who have heard its still, small voice' amid rural leisure and placid contentment. But perhaps the knowledge which cometh not to err, is most frequently impressed upon the mind during seasons of affliction; and tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of

heaven to spring and take root in the human heart." As by the chisel the sculptor brings beauty out of the marble block; as by the pruning-knife the gardener brings rich clusters from the vine; as by the bitter drug the physician brings health to his patient; as by the fire the refiner brings pure gold out of the rough ore-so by suffering, the great Father brings spiritual life, beauty, and perfection out of the soul. " Affliction," says quaint old Adams, “is a winged chariot, that mounts up the soul toward heaven."

"I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:" &c.-CHAP. xxx. 20–31.

GENERAL NOTE.-"This long and painful enumeration of Job's miseries comes in the right place: after the declaration which shows the unshaken firmness of his convictions, and his deep sense of the absolute, though unsearchable, wisdom of Him by Whom he was afflicted; and before his last complete vindication of his integrity. The outer gloom goes on increasing to the very end of his trial; the exposure to shame and ignominy, inward terrors, loathsome disease, unanswered prayer, certainty of near death, the

nervous system wholly prostrate; all these in their combination give him not a momentary repose, and draw from his heart reluctant, but unrestrained, complainings. Satan has had his will, he has reached within the skin (intus et in cute, see ch. ii. 4); and though forbidden to take the life, he has done that which was sufficient to prove the result of a mortal trial, he has made Job feel that life was gone; but with all that he has not advanced one step towards real success: the deeper the sense of God's alienation