so many sorrows. How deep and full the feelings that gathered strength with the last hours of the Saviour! "Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." The inexpressible tenderness of the last supper-his prayer for them as they went out at evening to the Mount of Olives,-the most melting and sublime petition that ever rose from dying lips for the friends that were left behind-those words from the cross, "Son, behold thy mother; woman, behold thy son "-show a heart, how full of the tenderest, human emotion! And yet what a sublimity of spirit! "Now is the Son of man glorified. I have overcome the world. Father, the hour is come. I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me." And through him we also may be ready, may finish the work which has been given us to do; and death shall come to redeem and glorify our spirits.

And not to us alone, but to those whom God has given to be with us here. With other feelings then shall we stand by them when they die, and think of them when gone. No, blessed spirit,' our glad hearts may exclaim at the thought of one who is gone, 'thou art not quenched in darkness, like some rayless star which shall rise and shine no more; not destroyed, not clouded even, by death; but redeemed from thy hard bondage, and shining with the peaceful light of heaven in thy new and glorious form.' So shall we think in death of those who, because they were pure and true, were endeared to us in life. Gone? By the kind and beautiful provision of God they are gone from the trials, cares, infirmities and sorrows of life, to him who is "their bright and morning star," where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Not that even then we may not think of them with tears. weep, as Jesus wept; but through our tears bless God who gave, and God who hath taken them from us. "And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." Blessed are they; and "blessed too are they who mourn" in Christian faith and love, for they shall find comfort to their souls.

We may

J. H M.

THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK OF JOB.

THIS ancient poem, probably the oldest of the sacred writings, may well be likened to that Eastern river which was fabled to flow over a bed of golden sand. Even so comes this pure and pellucid stream of truth down from its hidden birthplace among the morning-heights of the old world and in the sacred twilight of the Patriarchal age, and all along its course reveals rich gems and rare to him who runs beside its margin. It resembles one of those very clear waters which show the eye of the gazer, not only the earthly bed over which they pass, but far beneath that a second sky, a perfect image of the first, with its blue even softened and etherialized by the magic power of the reflection. Although the trials and tribulations of man's life and lot form the theme of the Book of Job, yet how calm, how untroubled is the stream of beautiful and sublime imagery in which they are so faithfully, yet soothingly reflected! The images of trouble do not disturb the majestic mirror in which they are presented-they leave not a film upon the surface; and when in a calm and attentive mood, with hearts taught by the realities of life to think and feel soberly, we look down into those sacred pages, and see and live over again so much of our strange experience, we there also behold, in those tranquil and transparent depths, a higher world, new heavens fashioned after those which arch over our heads, and the stars of immortality twinkle peacefully, not restlessly there, and win the spirit home to itself and to its God.

It is a kind provision of the Father of our spirits, and may fairly be regarded as an indication of his merciful design in afflicting his children, that the heart finds a peculiar and unearthly pleasure in the contemplation of its pains, when they are tenderly reflected in the stream of poetry—when their images are softened and spiritualized in memory's transforming glass. It is true, this pleasure often becomes a diseased pleasure; but that is the abuse of a good thing. The power exists in every human heart-that creative power, which remoulds sorrow into joy; and probably there is no one who does not at some time in his life exercise this power, who does not find and feel that it is good for him to have been afflicted,

that, as the poet says, "it is sweet to remember past labors," so also it is sweet to remember past sorrows-that as the remembrance of pleasure often becomes a source of regret, so the remembrance of pain becomes oftentimes a spring of purer joy. Some hearts have this susceptibility so strong, that almost before the suffering is past it becomes a thing of memory. This is the case with the highly imaginative, and still more happily is it the case with the spiritual mind. The former find a compensation, and more than a compensation, for outward or actual afflictions in the heightening which contrast gives to their ideal joys; the children of faith, however, in their sorrows find a more substantial satisfaction than the mere children of fancy, inasmuch as, while their real pangs are keener, they feel a keener pleasure flowing from the felt presence of the unseen Father.

There is indeed a certain unchristian stoicism, which "despises the chastening of the Almighty," and says, "Evil, be thou my good!" Nevertheless there is also a degree and kind of pleasure, which is not morbid, but natural and wholesome, in looking back or looking down upon the images of sadness. It is only when we seek what has been called “the joy of grief” as a luxury, that it becomes a sickly and wrong indulgence; when we simply and gratefully receive it, in the way of consolation amidst life's trials and troubles, then it is a pure and a proper pleasure.

Man, as he muses upon the sorrows of his eventful pilgrimage, is like the seaman whom Jean Paul represents gazing down upon the reflection of the burning Vesuvius in the mirror of the waters. "See how the flames shoot about, down below there, among the stars; red streams roll heavily around the mountain of the deep, and devour the fair gardens. But we glide unscathed over the cool flames, and our images smile up from the burning waters.' The pilot said this with satisfaction, while he looked up with apprehension at the thundering mountain. But I said: Lo! thus lightly does the Muse bear in her eternal mirror the heavy sorrow of the world, and the unhappy look therein, but they too find comfort and satisfaction in the contemplation of grief.""

And this comparison happily illustrates the pleasure which every thoughtful heart must feel in communing with the poetic spirit of the plaintive Book of Job. I have called this Book a poem. It is

a poem of the highest kind. Though to us it remains no longer in the common form of poetry, it is poetry, the outgushing of a poetic heart, the creation of a poetic age, Even if we suppose it, as many do, to be history, the actual history of a certain individual's distresses and discipline, still it is poetry; for poetry is but condensed truth. In short, the work is at once poetry and history. I mean it is not the production of mere fancy. It is the warm experience of a living, throbbing human heart. Whether there ever was a man named Job who sustained all these specific afflictions in his own person, or not, the writer is most manifestly dealing with realities-no mere "make-believe" pains and penances. He had felt the woes of humanity not only in his own breast, but by dwelling, through sympathy, in the breasts of others. His thoughts "breathe" and his words "burn," though they come not so much from "bright-eyed Fancy's magic urn," as from a full and laboring heart. But the author of this wonderful creation of genius is one who has risen above the ills of life and now looks calmly down upon them; otherwise, were he still entangled in them, he could not picture them to us so purely, calmly and with such perfect fidelity. He sails in the ark of faith over the sea of life, and beholds that frowning mountain of "ills that flesh is heir to," imaged, not disagreeably, in the serene bosom of a spirit at peace with God, acquainted with Him and reconciled to His Providence.

Is it an unnatural consolation for the afflicted to look back-to go back and dwell among the pure, the pious, the exalting conceptions and sentiments of the Book of Job? It must soothe the soul and lift it, as on wings, above the power of sorrow into the serene sky of grateful remembrance and hope, to reflect that in the very childhood of our race, far back in the dawn of the world, man was "born to trouble as the sparks fly upward "-that even then all our griefs were anticipated, that even then this Book was born, a book in which the children of affliction will read the record of their experience and find their purest consolation, next to the words of Jesus, to the end of time.

It may well be that it is the borrowed light of Christ's Revelation which lets us see so much meaning and merit in the Book of Job. We go to it, perhaps, with preconceived sentiments derived from

the Gospel of Jesus, and we find glimpes of a gospel there. It is indeed difficult for us, nor is it necessary, to avoid strengthening the earlier revelations with the all-prevailing light of the new; but certainly there are, scattered through the pages of Job, many striking approximations to the sentiments of our Religion. Such (to quote but one instance) is the question which occurs in the midst of that sublime accumulation of images, wherewith the writer labors, if it can be called laboring, to shadow forth the majesty and might of God—a question, at which, it would seem, the old silence of Nature must almost have resolved itself into audible and articulate speech:-"Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?"

C. T. B.

THE DEATH OF THE GOOD.

It is natural for benevolent minds to receive pleasure from bringing great and wise men into contact with each other. We imagine that concord will result from this union, and mutual differences of opinion assimilate them more harmoniously together, by bringing out various and ennobling traits of character. We believe there are few who have not had dreams of this kind; and likewise few who have not experienced disappointment in the result. The mind is not an exquisitely contrived instrument, that will yield its music at the touch of the professor; but may rather be compared to a locomotive, impelled by its own will.

There is one way however in which we may bring the excellent into contact, that may produce the happiest results for ourselves; we mean by their works, their precepts, and their lives. Is it not encouraging and animating to feel, that neither mountains nor oceans can by separation produce any different standard of human character? Great and good men (I speak of Christians) are everywhere the same, and when they are summoned to their native home, to the abode of "just men made perfect," we find that a striking resemblance has belonged to their characters. Indeed how can it be otherwise. They have drunk at the same fountain of