^ R. Collyer, Nature and Life, 56.
* Uucjh StoweU Brown, in Life by W. S. Caine, 140.
144 THE TREASURIES OF THE SNOW
^ Surely it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there is sorrow and sin in the world ; sorrow is then a part of love, and love does not seek to throw it off.^
A cold wind stirs the blackthorn
To burgeon and to blow, Besprinkling half-green hedges
With flakes and sprays of snow.
Thro' coldness and thro' keenness, Dear hearts, take comfort so:
Somewhere or other doubtless
These make the blackthorn blow.^
* George Eliot " Christina G. RossettL
I t
Hearsay and Experience.
JOB-PS. XXX. — lO
Literature.
Clifford (J.), Daibj Strength for Daily Living, 325.
Cook (G. A.), Tli,e Progress of Revelation, 75.
Dewhurst (E. M.), The King and His Servants, 46.
Drunimond (J.), Sjnritual Religion, 141.
Garbett (E.), Exiyeriences of the Inner Life, 13.
Jellett (H.), Sei-mons on Special and Festival Occasions, 22.
King (E.), The Love and Wisdom of God, 242.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Esther and Job, 63.
Marslial] (J. T.), Job and his Comforters, 130.
Moule (H. C. G.), From Sunday to Sunday, 72.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons, iii. 434.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxiv. (1888), No. 2009.
Vaughan (C. J.), Voices of the Prophets, 22.
"Wagner (G.), Sermons on the Booh of Job, 281.
Watson (R.), The Booh of Job, 392.
Wright (D.), The Power of an Endless Life, 20.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxix. 181 ( Ross Taylor) ; xli. 198 (M'Adara
Muir) ; Ixxv. 187 (Herbert). Churchman's Pulpit : Good Friday and Easter Eve, vii. 93 (Williams).
146
Hearsay and Experience.
I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; But now mine eye seeth thee, Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent In dust and ashes.
Job xlii. 5, 6.
1. Whatever may have been the date at w^hich this poem was written, it obviously represents a transition period in Jewish religious thought, and one of much interest and importance. Most modern scholars are agreed that, while Job himself belonged to patriarchal times, the unknown author who has so skilfully made the trials and patience of the patriarch the basis of his great poem cannot have written earlier than the time of Solomon, and probably wrote during the period of the Captivity. But whatever the date may have been, the time was one when men's minds were passing from an older and simpler faith to the fuller recognition of the facts of the Divine government. In the earlier ages of Israel's history, the national creed was this — Jehovah is righteous and His power is ever on the side of righteousness ; therefore, prosperity always attends the good, and punishment follows hard on the steps of the evil-doer. The outward lot is an index to the inward character. If, for example, the people were willing and obedient, it might be confidently expected that their vineyards and fields would yield abundant harvests ; whereas the ungodly should be as the chaff which the wind driveth away, a prey to the pestilence and the sword, swept off in the mid-time of their days. Such was their simple but powerful creed,true in its essence while rudimentary in its form, suited to their condition as children in both understanding and desire, while also fitted to be a stepping-stone to higher truth so soon as their hearts learned to seek a higher than earthly good.
U7
148 HEARSAY AND EXPERIENCE
But, according to the ways of human nature, the form became stereotyped, as though the letter rather than the sphit of the law were the abiding and essential element ; and men settled down into the undoubting conviction that the measure of the Divine favour might in every case be gauged by the measure of outward prosperity. And with what result ? As time went on and the horizon widened, and experience of life grew more varied, the question arose — How is this creed to be reconciled with facts? AVhat about the prosperity of the wicked ? What about the troubles and sore afflictions of the righteous ? The facts were broad, staring, undeniable ; what, then, about the ancient creed ? Men of honest purpose could not shut their eyes to the seeming contradiction, and felt themselves like persons shipwrecked, cast out in a wide and troubled sea. Was the faith of their fathers and their own faith proved to be a baseless dream ? Must they yield up their trust in Jehovah as the supreme and righteous Euler ? Must they think of God — if there be a God — as either indifferent to moral distinctions, or else powerless to give effect to His preferences ? The rise of such questions marked an era of first importance in Israel's religious history. It was the emerging out of comparative childhood, an advance to a theology at once more spiritual, more true to the facts of life, and charged, moreover, with new sympathies for human sorrow and need. In the breathing, burning words of this poem we have the lasting record of this great transition, this passing of the old faith into the new.
^ The Book of Job hovers like a meteor over the old Hebrew literature : in it, but not of it, compelling the acknowledgment of itself by its own internal majesty, yet exerting no influence over the minds of the people, never alluded to, and scarcely ever quoted, till at last the light which it heralded rose up full over the world in Christianity.^