they do speak.  An earnest, truthful kind of men.  They are, as we know, of Jewish kindred:  but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the Jews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant, which is not Jewish.  They had “poetic contests” among them before the time of Mohammed.  Sale says, at Ocadh, in the South of Arabia, there were yearly fairs, and there, when the merchandising was done, Poets sang for prizes:—­the wild people gathered to hear that.

One Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all high qualities:  what we may call religiosity.  From of old they had been zealous worshippers, according to their light.  They worshipped the stars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects—­recognized them as symbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature.  It was wrong; and yet not wholly wrong.  All God’s works are still in a sense symbols of God.  Do we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to recognize a certain inexhaustible significance, “poetic beauty” as we name it, in all natural objects whatsoever?  A man is a poet, and honored, for doing that, and speaking or singing it—­a kind of diluted worship.  They had many Prophets, these Arabs; Teachers each to his tribe, each according to the light he had.  But indeed, have we not from of old the noblest of proofs, still palpable to every one of us, of what devoutness and noblemindedness had dwelt in these rustic thoughtful peoples?  Biblical critics seem agreed that our own Book of Job was written in that region of the world.  I call that, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen.  One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it.  A noble Book; all men’s Book!  It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending Problem,—­man’s destiny, and God’s ways with him here in this earth.  And all in such free flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity; in its epic melody, and repose of reconcilement.  There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart.  So true everyway; true eyesight and vision for all things; material things no less than spiritual:  the Horse—­“hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?”—­he “laughs at the shaking of the spear!” Such living likenesses were never since drawn.  Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind;—­so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars!  There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.—­