The creed in which Job had believed was tried and found wanting, and, as it ever will be when the facts of experience come in contact with the inadequate formula, the true is found so mingled with the false, that they can hardly be disentangled, and are in danger of being swept away together.

A studied respect is shown, however, to this orthodoxy; even while it is arraigned for judgment.  It may be doubtful whether the writer purposely intended it.  He probably cared only to tell the real truth; to say for it the best which could be said, and to produce as its defenders the best and wisest men whom in his experience he had known to believe and defend it.  At any rate, he represents the three friends, not as a weaker person would have represented them, as foolish, obstinate bigots, but as wise, humane, and almost great men, who, at the outset, at least, are animated only by the kindest feelings, and speak what they have to say with the most earnest conviction that it is true.  Job is vehement, desperate, reckless.  His language is the wild, natural outpouring of suffering.  The friends, true to the eternal nature of man, are grave, solemn, and indignant, preaching their half truth, and mistaken only in supposing that it is the whole; speaking, as all such persons would speak, and still do speak, in defending what they consider sacred truth, against the assaults of folly and scepticism.  How beautiful is their first introduction:—­

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil which was come upon him, they came every one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.  And when they lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lifted up their voices and wept, and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven.  So they sate down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.”

What a picture is there!  What majestic tenderness!  His wife had scoffed at his faith, bidding him leave “God and die.”  His acquaintance had turned from him.  He “had called his servant, and he had given him no answer.”  Even the children in their unconscious cruelty had gathered round and mocked him, as he lay among the ashes.  But “his friends sprinkle dust towards heaven, and sit silently by him, and weep for him seven days and seven nights upon the ground.”  That is, they were true hearted, truly loving, devout, religious men, and yet they with their religion, were to become the instruments of the most poignant sufferings, and the sharpest temptations, which he had to endure.  So it was, and is, and will be,—­of such materials is this human life of ours composed.