Wichita eagle., 1890-01-04
JOB AND HIS FRIENDS.
THE QUIET, UNOBTRUsIvE SYM
PATTY OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP,

EIpha., BiIdad and Zophar. Let Us
Weep for Seven Days ~nd Nights.
A sermon by the late George Dawson set
me thinking the other day of the story of the
Han Of Uz-an old. old story familiar to
each of us, and having for us all very real
and pathetic interest, inasmuch as we never
know but what we ourselves may some day
stand in Jobs pitiful case, or, at least, shall
come to believe that we do. For every man
has a knack Of magnifying and multiplying
his troubles, until he becomes convinced
that his own pet particular burden-the Old
Man of the Sea which he carries on his ach-
ing shoulders-is heavier than was borne by
any Sindbad before him, and that there is
never a skeleton in mortal closets which rat
ties SO loudly as his. As for Job, | think
that, like humanity in general, he made the
most of his Affections. They were very
bitter and grievous, and he might justly cry
Alack, and wei day! but he enjoyed
good deal of compensation in the shape OF
querulous complaints against destiny and
much loud challenging of heaven
THE THREE FRIENDS.
It is a strange picture-that venerable
sheikh sitting there under the warm eastern
sky with bowed head and rent robes; no
laughter Of children in his ears, not even an
infants prattie; his wlfe's anguish constantly
before his eyes; his body loethsome with
leper's sores; the fields on which he looks
forth bare OF harvest and empty Of cattle;
all around, a shadow and a gloom, as if God
bad Withdrawn from him even that hope
which is mans last and best possession. And
then there come unto him his three friends
you may see them hurrying across the waste
as fast as they can drive their camels--and
when they recognize the full extent of his
desolation, their grief rises to the height Of
his own; and for seven days and nights they
sit on the ground beside him, weeping, but
speaking not word.
For me these Three Friends of Job have a
strong attraction | think | prefer to con-
template their figures more than that Of Job
himself Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar-I
say nothing of Eiihu, for be does not come
upon tho scene till long afterwards-wer
evidently men Of good counsel; not without
their shortcomingS-as was certainly the case
with Zophar, who was young, and had the
Impotence of youth-but men true as steel,
and animated by deep and generous spirit Of
sympathy.
Ehphaz Bildad and Zophar-after all, Job
was lucky man! Most of us nowadays re-
joice aloud if we have one friend to boast Of;
and here was this gray forefather" of the
long ago with threel And three such friends
each worth a score Of the ordinary pat
ternl For observe, as soon as they heard of
Jobs distresSes, they sent round to one
other and at once appointed to go together to
see him
They did not wait for the funeral baked
meats and the formal trappings of sorrow,
for paragraphs in the daily papers $50 to
speak, recording 1.-The remarkable calamities
that had befailen an esteemed townsman:"
they did not satisfy themselves with appoint
ing committee to receive subscriptions for
his benefit; but they girded their loins and
set out across the wide Chaldean plain, that
in their own persons they might testify to
their Astounding friendship.
A friendship, surely, to be thankful for!
A friendship which was not afraid Of e1er-
ton and self sacrifice And then their ex-
ouisite tact! They found their friend stunned
by the shocks he had undergone; and, with
keen, sympathetic eyes perceiving that the
time was not get when they might profitably
speak out Of the fulness of their hearts, they
sat down. and wept as he wept, and were
SlieDU as Ne WIS SLeuL. Lucy SdW tHdt Nc
wanted no condolences no filed phrases of
The iron had entered into
his soul; and to have applied the ordinary
balm of Gilead-the regulation oil of myrrh
to a wound 50 deep and so wide would
have been worse than foolish--it would have
been cruelty.
SILENT SYMPATHY.
There are times when silence is the tIuest
sympathy. To have your well meaning
your self constituted ''sons of
breaking in upon grief which
you are almost ashamed that heaven itself
should see, and filling your ears with their
indecorous platitudes, gives you worse pang,
does it not! than that which you were previ-
ously wriJhing under
When you are Overtaken by great sor-
row, what you want-yes, from your nearest |
and dearest friends silence. CLASP my
hand,n you say to him, land let me GO"
When mother is weeping over her dead |
babe, the cackle of commonplace gossip cuts |
her to the heart She cannot hear the kindly |
advice even of priest or scribe; but let her |
husbands arm steal round her silently, let |
the child still spared to her clasp her knees |
with the mute eloquence of love, she may
continue to weep on, but it will be with
feeling that there is something left to live |
forl
Nothing is less tolerable in those hours Of |
darkness, which no man OF woman born can !
hope wholly to escape, than the cold logic Of |
advisers What is the use OF |
telling me, while / am struggling in the
waters, that others have undergone, and |
others will undergo. the same terrible expe-
riencel You know that l do not, cannot.
will not believe it! While | am buffeting
for dear LIES sake the angry pillows, l needs
must think that never were the waters so |
deep, 50 furious before. How am l to know
what others have sufferedl Enough for me
that my breath is nearly spent, that my arms
sre almost powerless, that the shore seems to
recede farther aud farther from my sight,
Come, come. Eliphaz, Biliad and Zophar, sit
down by my side; let us weep for seven days
and seven nights, and take refuge IN the Wis
iOm OF Standardization Illustrated News
Our Limited WisdouA
All the family were reading in the library
MA eyeuinc Mr. Nav Ind tho ava,;n, IN |