One of the earliest allusions to the worship of the heavenly bodies occurs in the Book of Job (xxxi. 26–28). The age and writer of this book are alike unknown; by some it is ascribed to Job himself, by others to Moses, by others to some writer who lived at a still later period. As, however, the scenes therein described had with great probability been referred to a period very little removed from that at which we have now arrived, it may be well to speak of them here. JOB was an eminent Eastern chief, dwelling in very early times in the land of Uz (Job i. 1), probably Arabia Deserta, or, as some suppose, Mesopotamia. Greatest among “the sons of the East,” endowed with all the riches of his age, he ruled piously and wisely over a happy and numerous household, having seven sons and three daughters. To considerable mental attainments he added a moral uprightness, which preserved him blameless in all the relations of life, and was declared by the Lord Himself to be _without his like in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God, and eschewed evil_ (Job i. 8). With large and liberal hand he distributed to the necessities of the poor, so that whenever _the ear heard him then it blessed him, when the eye saw him it gave witness to him; the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, and he caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy_. But in the midst of this almost perfect temporal happiness he was suddenly overwhelmed with the heaviest misfortunes that can befall the sons of men. He who slandered God to Eve slandered Job before God, and affirmed that he did not fear Him for naught; that if he were stripped of all his possessions he would be as other men, and curse the Lord to His face (i. 11). To put, therefore, the patriarch’s faith to the most certain test, the Accuser of mankind received mysterious permission to cast him down, and try him with the most grievous afflictions. Blow after blow descended upon him. From being the lord of a numerous and attached household he suddenly became childless, for the storm of the desert swept over the house where his sons and daughters were assembled, and crushed them all beneath its ruins. From being the richest of the sons of the East he suddenly became a beggar, for the thunderbolt, “the fire of God,” fell and struck down all his sheep, as they were grazing quietly with their shepherds, while his camels were carried off by a band of Chaldean robbers, and his oxen and asses by a horde of Sabeans. And not only did he become a childless, beggared, ruined man, but upon his own body the black leprosy of the East set its awful mark, making him an object hateful and loathsome to look upon. Smitten with sores _from the sole of his foot even unto his crown_, he sat apart, forsaken by his friends and even by his wife. But amidst these awful trials his faith was not prostrated. When the terrible tidings reached him of the