ay for you; for
him I will accept." And Job, what ails Job now? He thought he was
rebuked of God in the Divine argument, and now he knows himself, at a
word, vindicated, exalted; honor burnished, and not tarnished; himself,
not accused of God, but beloved of him, and praised by him,--and Job is
weeping like a little child; and lifting up his face, while the tears
rain down his cheeks, his eyes and his heart and his face are like
springtime in laughter, and his voice is as the singing of a psalm!
For "the Lord turned the captivity of Job."

How great an advent! Beauty this drama has; but beauty belongs to the
rivulet and the twilights; but sublimity to the Niagaras, and the
oceans, and the human heart, and the words of God. This drama is
sublimity's self. Theme, actors, movement, goal, pertinency to the
deepest needs of soul and experience, and chiefly, God as protagonist,
say that sublimity belongs to this drama as naturally as to the
prodigious mountains or to the desert at night. "Surely, God is in
this place, and we knew it not."

And Job ends as comedy, though it began as tragedy. Hamlet ends in
tragedy. He has lost faith, and his arm is palsied. We hear the
musicians of Fortinbras playing a funeral dirge. Hamlet was tragedy
because God was not there. When God is near, no tragedy is possible.
God is out of Hamlet. Job had closed as Job began, with tragedy dire
and utter, but that here a man refused to let go of God. Job believed.
He did not understand. He was sore pressed. His tears and his anguish
blinded him for an hour; but where he could not see, he groped, and
caught

"God's right hand in the darkness,
And was lifted up and strengthened."

And God comes! and Job ends not in funeral dirge, as it began, but in
laughter and the smiting of silver cymbals. A good man's life has
tragedy, but ends not so. If he die, God is at his bedside, holding
his hand; and when he dies, he has good hope and solemn joy; for he
shall live again.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HERO AND SOME OTHER FOLKS***

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