The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 115

been true to God. This consciouaneee is still a kind of strength in weakness, and enables him to BBk this last boon at God's hands-a speedy death.--J, Vers. 14--21.-The illusiom of /nffl<lship. Oh, how sweet and bleBSed at this bout would the ministries of true friendship be! Job, in the shipwreck of fortune and of health, is like a poor swimmer clinging to a spar or fragment of rock with ebbing i;trengt.b, looking vainly for the lifeboat, and the strong, rescuing arms of friends and BR,·iours. Instead of this, bis friends stand aloof, and lecture and lesson him on the ~upposed folly which bas steered his bark upon the breakers. Here we see in one glance the greatest danger to which a human soul can be exposed, and the greatest service one human being can render another, I. THE GREATEST HUMAN PERIL. What is it? The loss of life? Not in the common sense of those words. For the loss of life in this world is not necessarily the loss of the soul. The loss of worldly goods ? Still less ; for a man's life consisteth not in these. The loss of family, of rep1itation, of health? All these may be repaired; but the loss Cl! God is irreparable. 'l'be mangled tree may sprout again, and send forth vigorous suckers from its root; but how if that root itself be extirpated from its hold:.: ing? It is the horror in the prospect of losing reverence, trust-of losing God-that now looms upon the patriarch'8 soul. We need only refer to the twenty-second psalm- to those words quoted by our Saviour in the agony on the cross-to.remind ouraelves of the fearfulness of this last trial to every godly soul. II. 'l'lm GREATEST uu:au. N KTh7:STRY. It is to do something to eave a sinking brother from such a fa.te. A cheerful fa.ith is infectious. A noble courage will thrill in the vibrations of sympathy to another's soul. And this is, then, tbe best office our friends can discharge for us in our greatest troubles. Let them remind us by their words, their prayers, their looks, their tones, of God. Let them not throw a new burden upon our drooping consciousness by reminding us of what we are or are not, but relieve us by telling us of what he is and ever will be-the Refuge and Strength of them that seek: him. And this may be a fitting place to speak generally of- III. 'fint QUALITIES OF FRIENDSHIP. By a beautiful image Job describes the failure of friendship. .An unfaithful or unintelligent friend is like a brook swollen wit.h snow and rain in spring-time, but dried in its channel under the scorching heat of summer, The poet says of one who has been lost to his sorrowing companions by death- • He is gone from the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a. summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest 1• The pathos of those words is, alas! applicable to living but absent or unsympathetio friends. There is nothing more beautiful or more useful in a.11 the world than true friendship. Perhaps as "all other things seem to be symbols of love, so love is the highest symbol of friendship." But for the service of friendship there must be: 1. O(Jf1,1Jf.ant affection. The equal flow of a deep river, not the intermittent gllBhings of a fickle fountain. 2. Habitv,ol, sympathy. We must feel with our friend so long as he is our friend. There are crimes which will break up this holy tie. Connivance at guilt can be no part of this sacred covenant. But so long as I can call my friend my friend, I must bear with bis infirmities, "not make them greater than they are." How unhappy the knack of seeing all that can be said against our friend, with blindness to all that can be urged in his favour I We dread the coming of these "candid friends," ao called. If there are unpleasant truths, let him hear them from another's lips than ours. Let not the troubles of those we own by this sacred name be made occasions for airing the conceit of our superior wisdom, or indulging a vein of moralizing, but for unlocking all the treasures of our heart. 3. Lively imagination, Waut of imagi- nation, or, in other words, dulness and stupidity, is a great defect for general social intercourse. Men quarrel and fly asunder becaUBe they do not understand one another, They do not use the faculty of imagination to "put themselves in another's plaoe.n And what may hinder general intercourse may be a fa.tal bar to friendship. "I am not understood:" what comm.oner complaint? Yet what is this high faculty given us for, but t.h&t, Wider the guidan.ce of Christian love, we may identify another h~t wit4 Ul.41' tlH, VI, 1-30.J THE BOOK OF JOB. 113