The friends of Job exhibit a portrait of human weakness; they suffer the fountain of sympathy and compassion to be completely dried up, in their eager ness to maintain a plausible but unsound hypothesis, namely, that because calamities in general are the fruits of sin, therefore they are such in all cases. In vain do they exhaust their powers of rhetoric, -for of logic they possessed but a scanty portion, -in vain do they alternately use crimination, irony, sarcasm, an appeal to experience and antiquity, trite maxims, sage sentences, and all the treasures of Idumean lore Job stands unconvinced and 1inconvicted, - repels their charges with vehemence, plaintively bewails his con dition, complains of their misplaced severity of judg ment, and confidently appeals to the future for some conspicuous vindication of his character. The friends adhere with painful pertinacity to their unjust cen sures, till the Almighty Arbiter interferes, and decides the contest in favour of the sufferer.

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