grief, clad in the insignia of mourning and prostrate on the earth, he still blessed the name of the Lord. He bore the further infliction of what was deemed a fatal disease, accompanied by acute bodily suffering, with heroic fortitude; and though his wife herself threw her weight upon the side of temptation, he still held fast his integrity, and submissively received evil as well as good from the hand of the Lord. But the third stage of the temptation is yet before him, and it will test his endurance more severely still. It is the persistence of suffering, its continued pressure through long intervals of time.

Many a citadel is proof against assault, which yet may be obliged to succumb to the slow and steady progress of a siege. Constant dropping wears away rocks. There are limits beyond which human endurance cannot go. The first onset of pain and suffering is not nearly so formidable as its protracted continuance, which wears out the strength and uses up the capacity of resistance. Pain which can be patiently borne for a short time

becomes intolerable after a longer period. Sad indeed is the condition of the worn and weary sufferer, whose strength is exhausted, his spirits sunk, his buoyancy gone, all hope fled; unable to calm his irritated nerves or ease his aching limbs, restless and unquiet, finding no repose, no comfortable posture and no cessation of pain, just wearing out the tiresome hours as they drag heavily along; through all the tedious night, and night after night watching for the dawn, which in its turn brings no relief; and through all the day sighing for the night, though the night brings no repose. It is not so much the amount of pain endured at any one moment as its long and wearisome continuance that is so hard to bear. This weary, exhausting round of suffering, with no prospect of relief, is the third stage of Job's heavy trial. The tempter, who had twice failed in his fierce onset, would now wear him out, if possible, and break his strength by continued endurance.

Day after day, week after week, he is still

compelled to drag his heavy burden, and he does so in silence. How long we know not. It was some time after his seizure before his friends arrived to comfort him. Doubtless a number of days had passed before they heard of his calamity. A further interval was consumed in concerting an appointment to come. When they arrived, his disease had already so altered his features and form that they lifted up their eyes and knew him not. And after their arrival they sat with him seven days and seven nights before Job uttered a word of lamentation. Through all this protracted period he bore his grief in silence. But at length his sorrows grow beyond his power to suppress them, and he breaks forth in the piteous moanings of intolerable anguish. He has borne the torture with pious fortitude, until at length nature can hold out no more: he can endure it no longer, and he gives vent to the most distressed sighs and groans; but in it all observe that he does not rail against God.

In the most passionate manner he utters

his wailing cry. With the most vehement expressions he heaps execrations on the day in which he was born; he wishes that day blotted from existence, in other words, that

it had never been, - so that it could not have inflicted upon him the misery of an intolerable existence. Oh that he had never been born! Oh that when born he had perished, neglected and uncared for, and thus might never have come to know the wretchedness of living! Oh if he had but found in early infancy a grave, which closes over all alike, and sweeps into its all-devouring maw the rich and great, kings and counsellors, the prisoner and the oppressor, the master and his slave, gathering all into that profound and undisturbed repose, which now is denied to him! Oh, how he longs for death! he would clutch at it as the miser grasps his gold, as men dig for hidden treasures. Why is this coveted privilege of death denied him?

Thus the poor sufferer bemoans his dismal fate. It is the doleful lament of one who has more laid upon him than he can bear. It is

not the utterance of considerate reflection. It is not the expression of deliberate views. The sentences are not to be nicely weighed, and their propriety or impropriety passed upon as though they were spoken in moments. of calm repose. They must be judged of from the situation of Job. They are the language of one tortured beyond endurance, who cannot support the anguish that he suffers, and whose life has become an intolerable burden. Allowance must be made for these paroxysms of helpless, hopeless sorrow. strength was not the strength of stones, nor his flesh of brass. He was incapable himself of weighing what he uttered. It only represents the bitterness of irrepressible woe.

His

Still, bruised as he is, hopeless of good, with but one wish, and this that he might die, Job does not reproach or revile his Maker. The tempter has broken his spirit, and crushed him to the earth; but he has not succeeded yet in wresting from him his integrity or bringing him to forsake his God.

Here we must leave the patriarch for the