Dawn Of Solace-Flames Of Perdition-320.zip
Download File ->>->>->> https://blltly.com/2tlebz
Time has passed sufficient for the realisation by Jobof his poverty and bereavement. The sense of desolationhas settled on his soul as morning after morningdawned, week after week went by, emptied of theloving voices he used to hear, and the delightfuland honourable tasks that used to engage him. Insympathy with the exhausted mind, the body hasbecome languid, and the change from sufficiency ofthe best food to something like starvation gives thegerms of disease an easy hold. He is stricken withelephantiasis, one of the most terrible forms of leprosy,[Pg 72]a tedious malady attended with intolerable irritationand loathsome ulcers. The disfigured face, the blackenedbody, soon reveal the nature of the infection; andhe is forthwith carried out according to the invariablecustom and laid on the heap of refuse, chiefly burntlitter, which has accumulated near his dwelling. InArab villages this mezbele is often a mound of considerablesize, where, if any breath of wind is blowing, thefull benefit of its coolness can be enjoyed. It is thecommon playground of the children, \"and there theoutcast, who has been stricken with some loathsomemalady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings ofmen, lays himself down, begging an alms of thepassers-by, by day, and by night sheltering himselfamong the ashes which the heat of the sun haswarmed.\" At the beginning Job was seen in the fullstateliness of Oriental life; now the contrasting miseryof it appears, the abjectness into which it may rapidlyfall. Without proper medical skill or appliances, thehouses no way adapted for a case of disease like Job's,the wealthiest pass like the poorest into what appearsthe nadir of existence. Now at length the trial offaithfulness is in the way of being perfected. If thehelplessness, the torment of disease, the misery of thisabject state do not move his mind from its trust inGod, he will indeed be a bulwark of religion againstthe atheism of the world.
His mind is certainly clouded; for it is not vain tosay that piety preserves the thought of what God oncegave, and Job had himself spoken of it when his diseasewas young. At this point he is an example of whatman is when he allows the water-floods to overflow himand the sad present to extinguish a brighter past. Thesense of a wasted life is upon him, because he doesnot yet understand what the saving of life is. To bekind to others and to be happy in one's own kindness isnot for man so great a benefit, so high a use of life, asto suffer with others and for them. What were thelife of our Lord on earth and His death but a revelationto man of the secret he had never grasped andstill but half approves The Book of Job, a long,[Pg 92]yearning cry out of the night, shows how the worldneeded Christ to shed His Divine light upon all ourexperiences and unite them in a religion of sacrificeand triumph. The book moves toward that reconciliationwhich only the Christ can achieve. As yet,looking at the sufferer here, we see that the light ofthe future has not dawned upon him. Only when heis brought to bay by the falsehoods of man, in theabsolute need of his soul, will he boldly anticipate theredemption and fling himself for refuge on a justifyingGod.
With simple strong art sustained by exuberanteloquence the author has now thrown his heroupon our sympathies, blending a strain of expectancywith tender emotion. In shame and pain, sick almost todeath, baffled in his attempts to overcome the seemingindifference of Heaven, the sufferer lies broken anddejected. Bildad's last address describing the fate ofthe godless man has been deliberately planned to strikeat Job under cover of a general statement of the methodof retribution. The pictures of one seized by the\"firstborn of death,\" of the lightless and desolatehabitation, the withered branches and decaying remembranceof the wicked, are plainly designed to reflectJob's present state and forecast his coming doom. Atfirst the effect is almost overwhelming. The judgmentof men is turned backward and like the forces of natureand providence has become relentless. The unitedpressure on a mind weakened by the body's maladygoes far to induce despair. Meanwhile the sufferermust endure the burden not only of his personalcalamities and the alienation of all human friendships,but also of a false opinion with which he has to grappleas much for the sake of mankind as for his own. He[Pg 223]represents the seekers after the true God and truereligion in an age of darkness, aware of doubts othermen do not admit, labouring after a hope of whichthe world feels no need. The immeasurable weightthis lays on the soul is to many unknown. Some fewthere are, as Carlyle says, and Job appears one of them,who \"have to realise a worship for themselves, or liveunworshipping. In dim forecastings, wrestles withinthem the 'Divine Idea of the World,' yet will nowherevisibly reveal itself. The Godlike has vanished fromthe world; and they, by the strong cry of their soul'sagony, like true wonder-workers, must again evoke itspresence.... The doom of the Old has long beenpronounced, and irrevocable; the Old has passed away;but, alas, the New appears not in its stead, the Timeis still in pangs of travail with the New. Man haswalked by the light of conflagrations and amid thesound of falling cities; and now there is darkness, andlong watching till it be morning. The voice of thefaithful can but exclaim: 'As yet struggles the twelfthhour of the night: birds of darkness are on the wing,spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living dream.Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day todawn.'\"
And who has control of the light The morningdawns not by the will of man. It takes hold of themargin of the earth over which the wicked have beenranging, and as one shakes out the dust from a sheet,it shakes them forth visible and ashamed. Under itthe earth is changed, every object made clear and sharpas figures on clay stamped with a seal. The forests,[Pg 395]fields, and rivers are seen like the embroidered orwoven designs of a garment. What is this lightWho sends it on the mission of moral discipline Isnot the great God who commands the dayspring to betrusted even in the darkness Beneath the surfaceof earth is the grave and the dwelling-place of thenether gloom. Does Job know, does any man know,what lies beyond the gates of death Can any tellwhere the darkness has its central seat One thereis whose is the night as well as the morning. Themysteries of futurity, the arcana of nature lie open tothe Eternal alone. 59ce067264