Is this way of looking at it confined to primitive man, confined to pagan nations? Do we find something else, some other condition of mind, when we come to study carefully the Old Testament? Let us see. Take the first verse which I read as a part of my text. The author of this Psalm we do not know who he may have been says, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." As I have read this a great many times in the past, I have wondered as to the strange experience that this man must have had in human life, if this is a correct interpretation of that experience. I have been young: I do not like to admit that as yet I am old; but, whether I am or not, I have a good many times seen the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging their bread. It seems to me that the writer of this verse was trained in a theory of the government of human affairs that does not at all match the facts. He has this magical, this arbitrary theory in his mind. It was the general conception I think, as any one will find by a careful reading of the Old Testament or study of Jewish history, the ordinary conception among the Hebrews, that God was to reward people for being good by prosperity, long life, many children, herds of cattle, distinction among his fellow-men, positions of political honor and power; and the threat of the taking away of these is frequently uttered against those that presume to do wrong. In other words, it seems to me that the ordinary theory of the government of human affairs as set forth in the Old Testament is precisely this same one that I have been considering as the natural and necessary outcome of the ignorance and inexperience of early man. As time went on, now and then some deeper, more spiritual thinker begins to question this method of reasoning, begins to wonder whether it is quite adequate; and we have a magnificent poetical expression of this kind of critical thought in the Book of Job. This Book of Job is any way and every way worthy of your careful attention. It is the nearest to a dramatic production of anything in the Bible. James Anthony Froude said once in regard to it that, if it were translated merely as a poem and published by itself, it would take rank as a literary work among the few great masterpieces of the world.