temporaries towards arriving at a proper understanding of it. The
books named below[H] form but a section of a long list which has
appeared during the last few years in Germany on the Book of Job alone;
and this book has not received any larger share of attention than the
others, either of the Old or the New Testament. Whatever be the nature
or the origin of these books (and on this point there is much difference
of opinion among the Germans as among ourselves) they are all agreed,
orthodox and unorthodox, that at least we should endeavour to understand
them; and that no efforts can be too great, either of research or
criticism, to discover their history, or elucidate their meaning.

We shall assent, doubtless, eagerly, perhaps noisily and indignantly, to
so obvious a truism; but our own efforts in the same direction will not
bear us out. Able men in England employ themselves in matters of a more
practical character; and while we refuse to avail ourselves of what has
been done elsewhere, no book, or books, which we produce on the
interpretation of Scripture acquire more than a partial or an ephemeral
reputation. The most important contribution to our knowledge on this
subject which has been made in these recent years is the translation of
the 'Library of the Fathers,' by which it is about as rational to
suppose that the analytical criticism of modern times can be superseded,
as that the place of Herman and Dindorf could be supplied by an edition
of the old scholiasts.

It is, indeed, reasonable that as long as we are persuaded that our
English theory of the Bible, as a whole, is the right one, we should
shrink from contact with investigations which, however ingenious in
themselves, are based on what we know to be a false foundation. But
there are some learned Germans whose orthodoxy would pass examination at
Exeter Hall; and there are many subjects, such, for instance, as the
present, on which all their able men are agreed in conclusions that
cannot rationally give offence to any one. With the Book of Job,
analytical criticism has only served to clear up the uncertainties which
have hitherto always hung about it. It is now considered to be, beyond
all doubt, a genuine Hebrew original, completed by its writer almost in
the form in which it now remains to us. The questions on the
authenticity of the Prologue and Epilogue, which once were thought
important, have given way before a more sound conception of the dramatic
uni