Behold then! thou hast seen poverty and disease, and both in the extremest degree brought upon this just man. Dost thou wish that I should shew thee the warfare at nature’s hands, in such excessive degree waged then against this noble man? He lost ten children, the ten at one fell swoop, the ten in the very bloom of youth, ten who displayed much virtue, and that not by the common law of nature, but by a violent and pitiable death. Who could be able to recount so great a calamity? No one. Whenever therefore thou losest son and daughter together, have recourse to this just man, and thou shalt find altogether much comfort for thyself. Were these then the only misfortunes which happened to him? The desertion and treachery of his friends, and the gibes, and raillery, and the mockery and de- rision, and the tearing in pieces by all, was something intolerable. For the character of calamities is not of such a kind, that they who reproach us about our calamities are wont to vex our soul. Not only was there no one to soothe him but many even on many sides beset him with taunts. And thou seest him lamenting this bitterly, and saying “but even you too fell upon me.”624 And he calls them pitiless, and says “My neighbours have rejected me, and my servants spake against me, and I called the sons of my concubines, and they turned away from me.”625 “And others” saith he “sport upon me, and I became the common talk of all.626 And my very raiment” saith he “abhorred me.”627 These things at least are unbear- able to hear, still more to endure in their reality, extreme poverty, and intolerable disease new and strange, the loss of children so many and so good, and in such a manner, reproaches and gibes, and insults from men. Some indeed mocked and some reproached and others despised; not only enemies, but even friends; not only friends, but even servants, and they not only mock and reproach, but even abhorred him, and this not for two or three, or ten days, but for many months; and (a circumstance which happened in that man’s case alone) not even had he comfort by night, but the delusions of terrors by night were a greater ag- gravation of his misfortunes by day. For that he endured more grievous things in his sleep, hear what he says “why dost thou frighten me in sleep, and terrify me in visions?”628 What man of iron, what heart of steel could have endured so many misfortunes? For if each of these was unbearable in itself, consider what a tumult their simultaneous approach excited. But nevertheless he bore all these, and in all that happened to him he sinned not, nor was there guile in his lips. 7. Let the sufferings of that man then be the medicines for our ills, and his grievous surging sea the harbour of our sufferings, and in each of the accidents which befal us, let us 624 Job xix. 5. 625 Job xix. 14, 16. 626 Job xix. 9, 10. 627 Job ix. 31. 628 Job vii. 14. 273 Homily III. On the Power of Man to Resist the Devil.