Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-01-09

tain him? Can two hearts beat as
one and sob their sorrow out upor
each others bosoms? Too off II
seems when sorrows come that they
must pierce the depths of desolation
ere the human heart again may com
fort know. Thus is it now; Jobs wife
is not sufficient to this need, she cries
"dost thou still retain thine integrity
curse God, and die"
Desolate and alone is the great man
with his sorrow. AS he lies crushed
and stricken. friends come to Offer
sympathy Was ever other thing, sc
great as friendship, so poorly told az
when 1t hath given expression to it
self? How rarely has he who sympa
thizes satisfaction with the telling
Less rarely is there comfort to him tic
whom the sympathy is told. So easy
to realize, so difficult to express is
| sympathy. His three friends found
Job, disheartened, discouraged, discon
ISOLATE, bewailing the day of his birth
and crying out the mystery of the
strange Providence that had overtaken
MIN, The eternal why of the human
heart in sorrow, the unbridled wonder
OF stricken soul struck Jobs three
friends with awe and they sat about
MIN for seven long days with gaze of
silence and reproach. OF itself this
was enough to make soul disconsol
ate. Three so-called friends from
realms remote have come to criticise
the Man OF Uz in the hour of his DESC
lation and the unsolved mystery of his
sorrow. Some things must ever be
mysterious. OF all these, sorrow is
the first. 'Twere better, if the heart
/ be hungry for our loved ones dead,
and every thought interrcgate for ex-
PLANTATION, that sympathy be not ex-
planatory; far better to confess the
I limits of our misunderstanding and
| cry with the poet of long ago." | know
that l shall be satisfied when awake
in thy likeness" This great heart.
hungry soul, writhing in the bitterness
OF Its disappointment, crying out to
the Infinite for explanation. yearning
Tor the touch of a vanished hand and
the sond of voice that is still" need
ed that, that would, in some measure.
take the place Of vanished hand and
stilled voice. The index finger of
brotherly love might have pointed to
the prophetic day of reunited families.
when Job should greet his sons again
and daughters too, and dwell with
them in habitation, which no storms,
however severe, could hope to fell, and
In lands where sanded cyclones are
alien forever. How cratic to teach
that physical death is but Gods pen
atty for sin, when death was king be-
fore sin e'er had reigned. If
physical death be penalty, let
him explain who may: but rath-
er let me think of loved ones dead
as treasurers Of the home of earth
transplanted to the Paradise of God,
assistants to the Infinite in ordering
and arranging the home and the well
come for me and mine when we shall
thither go.
After the seven days had ended
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shu-
hite, and Zophar the Naamathite,
spake each repeatedly to Job. Eliphaz
and Bildad addressed him three differ
ent times and Zophar twice. Their
speech was full of criticism and dra-
matte rebuke. 'Tis plsin they meant
true friendship, and showed it too in
their best way; but this way. how err
ratio. After each address Job sets up
reply, which takes the form of defence
in which sometimes he justifies him
self, because it seems to him he has
done his best Should they not then
have criticised him? Be not unmind-
full that God himself had said of Job
Like him there is none other" and
yet in his defense Job justifles him
self until we fear he has forgotten
sacrifice, humility. devoutness, wor-
ship. All, Job, great are thy trials,
shall we see thee conquered yet? The
supreme moment approached. What
nobler dramatic climax than when
King Lear, master of shakespeare
creations, the ghost of Hamlet not ex-
cepted. comes home from over the
seas with his misunderstood daughter.
Cordelia, her husband and her hus-
mands army, his own to claim again?
what more pathetic moment Than
when Lear, old, broken, desolate ana
homeless wanders out into the rieors
OF the storm swept night, to find ref
uge on the pallet of straw in the cave
OF the fool whose silly murmuring
Poor Toms cold" and the incompre
henslble replies of the brain-whirling
Lear are so pitiful and sad but Job,
suDllmer, grander, sturdier nobler far;
comparison becomes contrast for Job
is master drama, Job is master charac
ter. Goneril and Regain have proved
unworthy daughters to poor old Lear,
and Lear, who would make battle in
defense, whines, a lunatic. Jobs wife
has said Curse God and die" his
friends rebukes have multiplied In
the dignity and strength of his mighty
personality, trusting still in Him. be
tween whom and himself in these DAYS
of sorest sorrow the clouds of unsoly-
ed mystery have come, Job cries:
Hear him, We heavens: bark to him,
We sons of men; echo it over all the
earth. Job cries; miserable com
forters are We all, Hank again, though
he Stay me, yet will l trust in him.
Twould seem enough these friends
should DO their worst; but still, not
so; Elihu must have hearing. He
kindled his wrath and set it going.
Just who he was or whence he came
or what his rights l cannot under
stand, but, youthful, confident, deter
mined, he sought to correct the theol-
ogy of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and
likewise to intensity rebuke of Job
It's done with large use of the person,