Excerpt from Job and Solomon: Or the Wisdom of the Old Testament The interest of Job and Ecclesiastes is of a far deeper and more varied kind. Even from a critical point of view, the study of these books is most refreshing after the incessant and exciting battles of Pentateuch-criticism. But as monu ments of the spiritual struggles of a past which is not wholly dead, they have been to me, as doubtless to many others, sources of pure delight. If I appreciate job more highly than Ecclesiastes, it is not from any want of living sympathy with the philosophic doubter, but because the enjoyment even of Scriptures is dependent on moods and impulses. De Sanctis has pointed out (storia della lettemtum italr'ana, i. 80) how the story of Job became the favourite theme of the early Italian moralists, and everyone knows how the great Latin doctors (gregory the Great, Bede, Aquinas, Albertus Magnus) delighted to comment on this wonderful book. In our own day, from perfectly intelligible causes, Ecclesiastes has too much drawn off the attention of the educated world, but there are signs that the character-drama of Job will soon reassert its old fascinating power. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.