ritics, suppose that Job was
hurried away by his feelings to say all this; and that
in his calmer moments he must have felt that it was
untrue. It is a point on which we must decline
accepting even Ewald's high authority. Even then
in those old times it was beginning to be terribly true.
Even then the current theory was obliged to bend to
large exceptions; and what Job saw as exceptions we
see round us everywhere. It was true then, it is
infinitely more true now, that what is called virtue in
the common sense of the word, still more that nobleness,
godliness, or heroism of character in any form
whatsoever, have nothing to do with this or that man's
prosperity, or even happiness. The thoroughly vicious
man is no doubt wretched enough; but the worldly,
prudent, self-restraining man, with his five senses,
which he understands how to gratify with tempered
indulgence, with a conscience satisfied with the hack
routine of what is called respectability, such a man
feels no wretchedness; no inward uneasiness disturbs
him, no desires which he cannot gratify; and this though
he be the basest and most contemptible slave of his
own selfishness. Providence will not interfere to punish
him. Let him obey the laws under which prosperity
is obtainable, and he will obtain it; let him never fear
He will obtain it, be he base or noble. Nature is
indifferent; the famine, and the earthquake, and the
blight, or the accident, will not discriminate to strike
him. He may insure himself against those in these
days of ours: with the money perhaps which a better
man would have given away, and he will have his
reward. He need not doubt it.

And again, it is not true, as optimists would persuade
us, that such prosperity brings no real pleasure.
A man with no high aspirations who thrives and makes
money, and envelops himself in comforts, is as happy
as such a nature can be. If unbroken satisfaction
be the most blessed state for a man (and this certainly
is the practical notion of happiness) he is the happiest
of men. Nor are those idle phrases any truer, that
the good man's goodness is a never-ceasing sunshine;
that virtue is its own reward. &c. &c. If men truly
virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but
a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job
so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the
world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery
of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like
some old dre