departed.

That Job's children were virtuous, appears from the fact that their
father was particularly solicitous in regard to them, and rising up
offered sacrifices in their behalf, fearing lest they might have
committed secret sins; and no consideration was more important in his
esteem than this. Not only the virtue of the children is thus shown, but
also the affectionate spirit of the father. Since, therefore, the father
was so affectionate, showing not only a love for them which proceeded
from nature, but that also which came from their piety, and since the
departed were thus virtuous, the anguish had a threefold intensity.
Still further; when children are torn away separately, the suffering has
some consolation; for those that are left alleviate the sorrow over the
departed; but when the whole circle is gone, to what one of all his
numerous children can the childless man now look?

Besides these causes of sorrow, there was a fifth stroke. What was that?
That they were all snatched away at once. For if in the case of those
who die after three or five days of sickness, the women and all the
relatives bewail this most of all, that the deceased was taken away from
their sight speedily and suddenly, much more might he have been
distrest, when thus deprived of all, not in three days, or two, or one,
but in one hour! For a calamity long contemplated, even if it be hard to
bear, may fall more lightly through this anticipation; but that which
happens contrary to expectation and suddenly is intolerable.

Would you hear of a sixth stroke? He lost them all in the very flower of
their age. You know how very overwhelming are untimely bereavements, and
productive of grief on many scores. The instance we are contemplating
was not only untimely, but also violent; so that here was a seventh
stroke. For their father did not see them expire on a bed, but they are
all overwhelmed by the falling habitation. Consider then; a man was
digging in that pile of ruins, and now he drew up a stone, and now a
limb of a deceased one; he saw a hand still holding a cup, and another
right hand placed on the table, and the mutilated form of a body, the
nose torn away, the head crusht, the eyes put out, the brain scattered,
the whole frame marred, and the variety of wounds not permitting the
father to recognize the beloved countenances. You suffer emotions and
shed tears at merely hearing of these things: what must he have endured
at the sight of th