the Apocalyptic scorpion, the quotation has its intended sting in its tail) should almost certainly be rendered as in the margin. The spirit in which it is made may be judged of by Dean Goulburn's last page, in which he tries hard to insinuate that any one who holds a different opinion from himself on this question must almost necessarily be "heretical" in other matters also. It is the old spirit-want of charity, want of tolerance, want of humility-which also breathes through the quotation which I have adduced from St. Hilary, in which, after setting aside the only possible explanation of a perfectly simple Scripture passage, he declares that explanation to be "not only erroneous, but irreligious." Such dicta and such quotations will soon be estimated at their true value-which is zero, or, rather, a negative quantity.

THE BOOK OF JOB.

VIII. THE THEOPHANY.

SECOND DIVINE REMONSTRANCE (CH. XL. 6—XLII. 6). How to know God without knowing all that He is and does, how to stay himself on a Being whose ways are past finding out, is the lesson Job has still to learn. And he learns this lesson in the most singular but approved way-learns it by being shewn that even when God manifests Himself to man, man cannot comprehend Him, nay, cannot so much as comprehend any one of the works, or acts, in which He manifests Himself.

The mystery which Modern Science recognizes in the more subtle and recondite forces of Nature-in Energy, in Life, in Consciousness—was recognized by ancient thought in its more obvious, its more magnificent and impressive phenomena. But the mystery is the same wherever we find it. We may push back the dark line, or wall, at which our knowledge ends a little further; but, at the best, we soon reach it, and it

is as impassable to us as to the world's grey fathers. There is not a single term we use, however simple and common, of which we can grasp all that it covers and connotes. Our wisest word veils more than it reveals. The more we know the more humbly we confess that we know nothing as it is in itself; our very wisdom, our very reverence, makes agnostics of us, and compels us to admit that every item in the whole range of our knowledge floats unsteadily on a great deep of mystery impenetrable. How, then, can we affect to know Him who is, of whom the whole universe with all that it contains, and the whole course of human history with all its changes, are but partial and imperfect manifestations?

Comprehend Him we cannot; but we may know Him, and know Him on precisely the same terms on which we know anything of the universe around us, or of our fellow men. We do know much of the natural world, so much that, save in an idle play of fancy and speculation, we never doubt its existence, although

every item of our knowledge soon runs up into

mysteries we cannot fathom. And we know much of men, or of some men, although we frankly admit that we do not know even the man we know best altogether, much less interpret all that our neighbours are and do. While we confess that in their being and history there are profound mysteries which we shall never resolve, we nevertheless know that they are, and there are at least some of them whom we may reasonably and confidently honour and trust and love. As we know them, so also we may know God-know that He is; know that He reveals Himself to those who seek Him; know that He is worthy of our reverence, our trust, our

supreme affection. The mystery which shrouds Him from us need not hide Him from us any more than the mysteries of our own being need hide us from ourselves, or our incapacity to know all that is in men need hinder us from knowing them at all, or from committing ourselves to those who have shewn themselves worthy of our confidence and love. As many as care to know Him may find Him, as they find their fellows, in his works, his acts, his words.

It is to these revelations of Himself that He appeals -referring Job to them, referring us to them. In his Second Remonstrance Jehovah follows the very line of argument we have traced in the First. As yet the argument, or appeal, had not produced its due and full effect. It had rendered Job more sensible of his weakness indeed, of his inability to comprehend all the ways of God, of his presumption in assuming to criticise and censure them. But even when it is closed, he hints, as we have seen, that he is being overwhelmed by the majesty of God rather than receiving a reply to his doubts and fears. In fine, he has not yet learned his lesson. He is not sufficiently conscious of the limitations of his powers; he is not fully alive to his inability to grasp the mystery by which he is perplexed, or any adequate solution of it; nor is he, as yet, humbled to the very dust by the conviction of his own irreverence and insolence in presuming to censure a Providence he does not and cannot understand.

To this self-knowledge, since there is no other exit from his misery, he must be brought. And hence, in the Second Remonstrance, Jehovah does but iterate the appeal of the First, seeking by this benign iteration

to drive him to a conclusion he ought already to have reached. Once more, therefore, He challenges the man who has impugned his justice to wield, if he can, those cosmical forces, the play and incidence of which enter so largely into the Providence he had impugned (Chap. xl. 7-14); and once more He invites him to consider the works (Chap xl. 15—xli. 34) in which he saw the most marvellous exhibitions of the Divine Wisdom and Power: that he may thus come to know his own weakness more fully, and be more fully persuaded of the majesty and the beneficence of Him whose ways he had ventured to criticise and even to "condemn."

And, at last (Chap. xlii. 1-6), Job catches the Divine intention, responds to the Divine appeal; he confesses that he had known neither himself nor God, repents of his insolent attempt to clear himself by condemning his Maker, to assert his own integrity by impugning the righteousness of the original Source and Fountain of Righteousness, falls in utter submission before the great Adversary in whom he now finds, as he had long hoped to find, his Redeemer and Friend; and in and through that submission rises to his true triumph and reward.

CHAP. XL.

7.

8.

9.

IO.

CHAPTERS XL. 6-XLII. 6.

Then Fehovah answered Fob out of the tempest and said:
Gird up thy loins, now, like a man;
I will question thee, and answer thou Me.

Wouldest thou also impugn my justice?
Wouldest thou condemn Me to clear thyself?
Hast thou, then, an arm like God,
Or canst thou thunder with a voice like his?
Deck thyself, now, with pomp and majesty,
And array thyself in glory and splendour;

II.

12.

13.

14.

Pour forth the floods of thy wrath,
Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low;
Look on every one that is proud, and fell him,
And trample down the wicked in their place;
Hide them altogether in the dust,

Bind fast their faces with darkness:
Then even I will acknowledge

That thine own right hand can help thee!

15. Behold, now, Behemoth, whom I have made no less than thee.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

He feedeth on herbage like the ox:

Lo, now, his strength is in his loins,
And his might in the muscles of his flanks;
He bendeth his tail like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs interlace:
His bones are strong tubes of brass,
Bars of iron are his ribs.

Of the works of God he is the masterpiece;
He that made him hath given him a scythe:
The mountains also yield him pasture,
Where all the beasts of the fields disport themselves :
He coucheth under the lotus-bushes,

In the covert of reed and bulrush;
The lotus-bushes cover him with their shade,
The willows of the stream hang round him.
Lo, he flieth not when the river is in spate,
He is fearless though a Fordan burst on his mouth!
Can one catch him when he is on the watch,
And pass cords through his nostrils?

CHAP. XLI.

Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook,
Or with a line which thou canst sink into his tongue?
Canst thou pass a rush rope through his nostrils,
Or pierce his jaw with a hook?

Will he multiply supplications unto thee?
Will he greet thee with soft words?

Will he strike a bargain with thee

That thou mayest take him to be thy servant for ever?

Canst thou play with him as with a bird,
And tie him to a string for thy damsels ?

Do the Fish-Guild traffic with him?
Do they distribute him among the merchants?