seven days and seven nights upon the ground. That is, they were true-hearted, truly loving, religious, devout men, and yet they with their religion were to become the instruments of the most poignant sufferings, the sharpest temptations, which he had to endure. So it was, and is, and will be-of such materials is this human life of ours composed." The passage suggests a few of the leading features of genuine friendship.

I. IT IS DEEPENED BY ADVERSITY. The effect on bis friends of the overwhelming calamities which overtook Job, was not to drive them from him, but to draw them to him. When they "heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place." His afflictions so roused and intensified their affections, that they left their homes and hastened to his presence. Adversity is one of the best tests of friendship. The Germans have a proverb, "Let the guests go before the storm bursts." False friends forsake in adversity. When the tree is gay in summer beauty, and rich in aroma, bees will crowd around it and make music amongst its branches; but when the flower has fallen, and the honey has been exhausted, they will pass it by, and avoid it in their aerial journeys. When your house is covered with sunshine, birds will chirp at your windows, but in the cloud and the storm their notes are not heard such bees and birds are types of false friends. Not so with true friendship; it comes to you when your tree of prosperity has withered; when your house is shadowed by the cloud and beaten by the storm. "True friends," says an old writer, "visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come to us without invitation." I have seen an oak-tree, once the ornament of the forest, leafless, blanched, dead; but the ivy that had clung to it in its better days seemed to clasp it more tenaciously in its decay, as if so to cover every branch with its own beauty as to conceal the wrinkles and deformities that time had made. This is true friendship.

"When true friends meet in adverse hour,

"Tis like a sunbeam through a shower;

A watery ray an instant seen,

The darkly closing clouds between."-Sir Walter Scott.

In this respect, Christ is the highest manifestation of genuine friendship. He came down from His own bright heavens because of our adversity. "He came to seek and to save the lost." Another thought suggested concerning genuine friendship is

II. IT IS PRACTICALLY HELPFUL.-The friendship of these men was not a passing sentiment, an evanescent emotion, it was a working force; it set them to

First: A self-denying work. They left their homes and directed their footsteps to the scene of their afflicted friend. We know not the exact distance they had to travel; it was probably a long journey, otherwise it was not likely they would have made an appointment to travel together. Travelling, too, in those days meant something more than it does in these times, when means of transit are so accessible, agreeable, and swift. And then, no doubt, it required not a little self-denying effort to break away from their homes, their numerous associations, and the avocations of their daily life. Their friendship meant self-denying effort. This is always a characteristic of genuine friendshipspurious friendship abounds in talk and evaporates in sighs and tears; it has no work in it. As a rule, it is not the man whose affection for you is the most garrulous, and whose words are the most glozing, that you can trust; the stronger and deeper the love a man has for you, the more modest and mute. It set them to

Secondly: A self-denying work in order to relieve. They came "to mourn with him and to comfort him." Man can comfort man. The expressions of true sympathy are balm to a wounded heart, and courage to a fainting soul. They have often broken in as sunbeams through the black clouds of sorrow, under which the spirit had quivered and quailed. These men did not come to pay Job a complimentary visit; address to him a few flattering words, and then depart; they came "to mourn with him and to comfort him."

In this feature of genuine friendship Christ was again transcendent. "He came to preach deliverance to the captive-to open the prison door to them that are bound -to bind up the broken-hearted," &c.

Another thought suggested concerning genuine friendship is

"And when they

III. IT IS VICARIOUSLY AFFLICTED. lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept: and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven." If this language means anything, it means soul suffering. The very sight of their friend's overwhelming afflictions harrowed their hearts. We are so constituted that the personal sufferings of our friend can bring sufferings to our heart as great, and often greater. What is the pain endured by the child with the burning fever on it, compared with the agonizing distress of its mother's heart? The more love we have in us, the more vicarious suffering we endure, in scenes where sufferings abound. In this respect again the friendship of Christ excels all others. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. So great was the Divine love within Him, that "He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows."

Another thought suggested here concerning genuine friendship is

IV. IT IS TENDERLY RETICENT. "So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great." Why were they silent? We are sometimes silent with amazement; we are struck dumb by astonishment. We are sometimes silent because we know not what words to utter on the occasion; and sometimes we are silent because the tide of our emotion rises and chokes the utterance. Why were these men silent? For any of these reasons? Perhaps for all. Anyhow, in their silence there was wisdom-silence on that occasion was better than speech. They let their flowing tears, their symbolic mantle, their heads turned towards heaven with imploring looks, their sobs and sighs, do what words could not do-express the profound sympathy of their hearts. Silence, not speech, is the best service that friendship can render in sorrow. First, Because silence is the strongest evidence of the depth of our friendship towards our suffering friend; Secondly, Be

cause silence is most consistent with our ignorance of Divine Providence towards our suffering friend; Thirdly, Because silence is most congenial to the mental state of our suffering friend.*

HOMILY No. VII.

JOB'S FIRST SPEECH-THE MADDENING FORCE OF SUFFERING. "After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day," &c.—CHAP. iii. 1-26.

*For remarks on this point see Homilist, Second Series, vol. iii., p. 416.