e the listeners arose and slipped out in silence, leaving the
rapt reader alone, he holding on his solitary way until the last
strophe fell from the reader's lips; nor can we wonder at him, for such
must be the disposition of every thoughtful peruser of Job. As we will
not care to lay Hamlet down till Fortinbras is taking Hamlet, with
regal honors, from the scene, so we cling to Job till we see light
break through the clouds, and the storm vanish, and the thunder cease.

Job is a prince, old, rich, fortunate, benevolent, and good. Life has
dealt kindly with him, and looking at his face you would not, from his
wrinkles, guess his years. The great honor him; the good trust him;
the poor, in his bounty find plenty; no blessing has failed him, so
that his name is a synonym of good fortune,--such a man is chief person
of this drama, written by some unknown genius. Singular, is it not,
that this voice, from an antiquity remoter than literature can
duplicate, should be anonymous? Not all commodities have the firm's
name upon them. Some of the world's noblest thoughts are entailed on
the generations, they not knowing whence they sprang. He who speaks a
great word is not always conscious it is great. We are often hidden
from ourselves. But our joy is, some nameless poet has made Job chief
actor in the drama of a good man's life. "The steps of a good man are
ordered of the Lord," the Scriptures say, and such a man was Job; and
the theme of this drama is, how shall a good man behave under
circumstances ruinously perverse, and what shall be his fate? The
theme has rare attraction, and appeals to us as a home message, dear to
our heart as a fond word left us by a departing friend.

The drama has prologue, dialogue, and epilogue. The actors are Job's
friends, Job's self, Satan, and God.

Temporarily, as an object lesson to children in the moral kindergarten,
God gave prosperity under the Mosaic code as proof of piety. This
_regime_ was a brief temporality, God not dealing in giving visible
rewards to goodness, else righteousness would become a matter of
merchandise, being quotable in Dun's. When we reason of righteousness,
that the good are blest seems a necessary truth; yet they do not appear
so. They are afflicted as others, "the rain falls on the just and the
unjust;" nay, more, the wicked even seem favored; "he is not in trouble
as other men;" prosperity smiles on him, like a woman on her favored
lover; and the s