Vers. 1, 2.-Trite sayings. Job's complaint is that there was nothing new in hia friends' pret.entious harangues. All their pompous airs of superiority and authority did not deceive the patriarch, and prevent him from detecting the essentially commonplace cltaracter of their ideas. I. MosT SAYINGS ARE TRITE. It is not often given to a man to discover a new truth. Even when a person makes a remark that is original in him, i.e. that he has not derived from any other man, the proba.bility is that some one else has said something very like it before. 'l'oo often, when a man is pretentious of novelty, what is fresh is only the garb of his notion. The newest extravagances in religion are generally only old heresies exhumed and m.a,,crnetized into a semblance of life. It is foolish to .think of astounding the world with our ideal. Even in Job's day people were weary of the little stock of notions that was in circulation among the most intelligent classes. IL THE FUSSY REPETITION OF TRITE SAYINGS CAN DO NO GOOD. Job'a three friends only vexed the sorrowing man by repeating what he knew as well as they. The same mistake is often made in foolish attempts at administering consolation. No sayings are so trite as those that treat of suffering and its uses. The very commonness .of the lot of suffering, and the very obviousness of some of its circumstances, have I!l&de the stock precepts of sorrow very familiar to all of us. It is useless to go to a person in trouble and repeat them once more. It would be better to be silent. Silence might affect him as a most original novelty. III. T&TE BATINGS M.AY 13E TRUE AND IM:PORTA..NT. 1. TrU6. It is not to be sup- posed that men are generally the victims of delusions. One res.son why certain say- ings have become trite is that they have been proved by experience to be true. Had they been false they would have been discarded long since. No doubt there are vener- able errors. .Job's friends' trite sayings were so one-sided that the truth of them was lost by perversion ; but still most trite sayings must have a considerable amount of truth in them to stand the test of time. 2. Important. The triteness is generally a testimony to the importance; for if the sayings were of slight moment they would have been .negleckd. The current use of them presupposes some value. attached to them. The gospel of Christ has become a trite saying to many. Yet it is as true and momentous as ever. IV. PERBOlil'AL .APPLICATION .AND SYMPATHY MAY REVIVE INTEBEBT IN TBITE SAYINGS, l. Persvnal application. It is difficult to be in earnest with a trite saying. Such a saying tends to become a mere form of words. It wears like a coin that has lost-its effigy and legend. "Truths," says Coleridge, "of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered SB so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised. and exploded errors." But he adds, "There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance to the most commonplace maxims-that of reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being." 2. Sympathy. The three friends applied the trite sayings to Job, but be would not take them home to himself. He justly considered that they did not apply to him in the we.y his friends supposed. They applied them without sympathy, and therefore without understanding Job. We may repeat very familiar wordB, and yet if the ring of sincerity and the tone of sym- pathy be in them they will still awaken interest.-W. F. A. OB, XIII, 1-28,] THE BOOK OF JOB. 23G
Ver, 4.-" Phyllir:ians of no val'UIJ," Job's friends were pbyeicians of no value, They co.me to heal, but they only aggravated his complaint. I. CONSIDER WHERE WE )IIEET WITH PHYBIOIANS OF NO VALUE. 1. In dealing with sorrow. How ro.re is a. truly helpful friend in a. time of great sorrow ! Many well- wishers try their band at consolation, but most of them bungle painfully. We endure their visits of condolence because we do not wish to be ungrateful ancl disagreeable, but we a.re relievetl when they have left us alone with our grief. 2. In treating sin. No human being can cure sin. Men may blame sin, but they cannot cast it out. Here is a disease that no medicine of man's can touch. But there is room for some action of ours. We ought to be able to bring the Divine remedy. Yet how often we fail to do so I How conscious we must be that our efforts are not reaching the sinner and really helping him I 3, In meeting social trouble. There are plenty of wild theorists, but none of them have been able to set right the disorganized state of society. Pi:iila.n- thropists too often show more zeal than judgment. II. INQUIRE WHY THE PHYSICIANS ARE OF NO VALUE. 1. Ignorance of the state of the patient. If the doctor has not rightly diagnosed his case he is not likely to be suc- cessful in bis treatment of it. We must under;tand those whom we would benefit. 2. Lack of slcill in the use of remedies. The doctor must understand his drugs, or he will poison his patients. If we would benefit men we must first know them; then we must know the Divine medicine. They who do not apprehend the gospel of Christ them- e.elves .cannot be physicians of value to others. We must study truth as well as men ; and we must go further, and be familiar ourselves with those great saving ideas which we would apply to others. 3 . .Absence of sympathy. Here was the secret of Job's friends' failure, although at first they seemed to have evinced the deepest sympathy. We can never help the miserable till we sympathize with them. The first essential to success in a mission among the poor is brotherliness. If this is wanting, the mission must fail though any amount of energy and money may be expencletl on it. III. REMEMBER THAT THERE IS ONE PHYSICIAN OF INESTIMABLE VALUE. Christ fulfils all the requisite conditions. He knows us, for he is one of ourselves--tempted in all respects as we are, though without sin. He is familiar with the needed remedy, for he is one with God, and is perfectly at home among those great spiritual facts from which the cure of the world's evil must come. He, too, is full of sympathy. Of old he cured the sick because he was "moved with compassion." The great, tender heart of Christ bea.ts in warm sympathy for all his brother-men. Now we have to see in experience that our good Physician is able to do what the physicians of no value have failed to accomplish. Christ is the Friend to help in sorrow; he alone can cure sin. Christ in the world brings the kingdom of heaven, and so corrects the social troubles. Christ as a living Saviour, as a.n active Physician now in our midst, can heal, and we know this because we see he does heal wherever he is trusted to do so.-W. F. A.