Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-11-12

Africa 'Sert and stands there still.
Why ~ not say something about
reunion II the heavenly realms with
his children, who had been slain? Why
did they not talk to him about the sat
isf2ctory explanations in the future
WO,ld of things we do not understand
in this world? Why did they not go to
the apOthecary and buy pouItice that
would have soothed the carbuncles, or
some quieting potion that would calm
his nerves, or a few drops Of febrifuge
that would cool his heated frame? No!
For seven days and seven nights they
did nothing and said nothing for his
relief. They must have almost bored
him to death.
Jobs Comforters.
After these three friends had COM
pleted their infamous silence Of a week
they began to lecture Job. First Eli
phaz the Temanito opens with a long
story about a dream which he had in
the night and initiates the sufferer
with words that make things worse
instead Of better and sets him in an
attitude of defense against the lecturer.
Then comes Bildad the Shuttle, who
gives the invalid q round ScOlding and
calls him garrulous and practically
tells him that he deserved all that he
had got and that if he had behaved
himself Alright he would not have lost
his house or his children or his estate.
He practically said: "JOb, 1 will tell
you what is the matter with you. You
are bad. You are a hypocrite. You
-iaJ-
ness" No wonder that there came
from Job an outburst of Indignation,
which calls out the other Quondam
friend, ZOphar the Naamathite, who
begins denouncing Job by calling him
a liar and keeps on the discourse until
Job responds to all three of them in
the sarcastic words, mo doubt but
We are the people. and wisdom shall
die with YOU
Oh. what friends Job had! Heaven
deliver us from having one such friend,
to say nothing of having three Of them.
1t was for such friends that Job pray
ed. and was it not religious triumph
for him so to do? Would you, the
very best Of you, be in very devout
mood and capable Of making interces-
sion for people who had come to you
in a day of trouble and said: Good
for you. You ought to be chastised.
You are being taken in hand by eternal
justice. If you had behaved yourself
Alright. you would not have been sick
or prosecuted or impoverished or made
childless." Oh, no, my friend, you
would not have felt like Job when he
frsin 1011+
Job when he cursed the day of his
nativity.
Notice that this fagellation by the
three friends was premeditated. They
did not merely happen in and come
suddenly upon trouble for which they
could not offer compound. The Bible
says, They had made an appointment
together" The interview was prear.
ranged. They had agreed as to what
they would say to the sick man. You
can see that their remarks were not eX-
temporaneous. What they said was
sublimely poetic. They rose in style
into what in later times we would call
the Homeric or DantesQue. But Job
was not in need of poetry so much as
salve for his eruptive disorder. He
was not dying for lack of a paragraph
in blank verse. He was not so much
in need of a didactic lecture about the
justice of God as an assurance of the
divine mercy. Some pious rustic Of the
land of w, not able to put three gram
NAUTICAL sentences together, could have
said something more consolatory.
Worthy of Emulation.
The meanness of the attack of these
religious critics was augmented by the
fact that they had the sufferer in their
power. When we are we'll and we do
not like what one is saying, we can get
up and go away. But Job was too i'll
to get up and go away. First he en-
dured the seven days and seven nights
of silence, and then he endured their
of his motives and char
acter, and after their cruel campaign
was ended, by sublime effort of soul.
which l this day uphold for imitation,
he triumphed in prayer for his tantaliZ-
ers. In all history there is nothing
equal to it except the memorable i'm
ploration by Christ for his enemies.
No wonder that after that prayer of
Job was once uttered thrill of recov-
cry shot through every nerve and vein
Of his tortured body and every passion
of his great soul, and God answered it
by adding nearly century and a half
to his lifetime and whitened the hills
with fiocks Of sheep and filled the air
with the lowing of cattle and Weakened
the silent nursery Of his home with the
swift feet and the laughing voices Of
sons and three daugh-
tiers celebrated for their beauty, the
to refine the sons, the sons
to defend the daughters. There is moth
ing that pays so we'll as prayer, and
the more difficult the prayer to make
the greater the reward for making it.
Let us all make similar attemDt to