First speech of Bildad. 83

cautery, to the wounds of his friend. ' If thy poor children,' he Lecture

says, 'have been cut off for their sins, there is still time allowed ^^•

thee for repentance. Turn diligently to God, and He will

turn to thee ; pray to the Almighty, show thyself pure and ^er. 4-6.
upright before Him, and his favour will be restored, and this

dark chapter in thy life will end in a brightness that shall

surpass all that went before.'

' And though thy beginning was small, ver. ?.
Yet thy latter end should greatly increase'
A quite unconscious and unintentional prediction, we may
note, of the closing page of the book.
And then he too, as he who spoke before him, having no
written word to appeal to, no passage from Holy Writ to
quote to the confusion of his friend — for you will not forget
that we are far removed in this book from the land and race
in which the words of the Old Testament were treasured as
the oracles of God — throws himself back upon other authority
than his own. He can of course quote no text, and he
brings forward no vision of the night as Eliphaz did, but he
calls to his aid the accumulated wisdom of earlier ages, the ver. S-io.
