In the book of Job we find the question, "Where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?" Job then goes on to argue that these cannot be found in materiality, and that they are too precious to be purchased by gold, sapphires, or rubies; and all this leads up to the declaration that in God alone can wisdom and understanding be found. Job was at this time passing through a great struggle, so we are told, with physical suffering and the loss of all his earthly possession, as well as the sudden death of his sons and daughters. His whole cry was that he might get closer to God, and yet he believed that all this wretchedness had come upon him by divine decree. Furthermore, the friends who essayed to comfort him in his great trial believed as he did that God was responsible for it, or at least for the conditions which led up to it, and so they were unable to enlighten his darkness or to change in the least the current of his sorrowful thoughts.
This dark drama of human suffering goes on through many chapters of the book of Job, but at length another appears on the scene. Elihu, who represents in large measure the understanding of God and man which is today held to be the basis of Christian Science, and which must always underlie all true healing. In the thirty-third chapter of this remarkable book we find him addressing himself to Job by declaring that the "spirit of God" is the only life of man; and then he takes up Job's own arguments and proceeds to reduce the whole of this mortal experience to what it really is, namely, a dream, as "when deep sleep falleth upon men." The picture of human suffering which follows is indeed a sad one, so sad that the dreamer believed he was drawing nigh unto the grave; but at this point something intervenes. A messenger from Truth and Love, an interpreter to human sense of the realities of being, presents the case for mortal man—not against him—from the divine side, and the sufferer is told that God "will be favorable unto him," and that he will see the Father's face with joy, because divine Love and justice "will render unto man his righteousness." The divine decree of redemption is given forth in the words, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom."— the last phrase being quoted by our revered Leader on page 276 of Science and Health in connection with the words, "I am the Lord that healeth thee."
As we read on in this chapter, we find that Elihu's treatment of the mental conditions involved is continued, although it does not appear that Job at once realized the power of the truth which was being declared for him; but none the less Truth was doing the needed work, as it ever must, now as then. Even in the midst of the sorrowful dream there was a thought of God giving "songs in the night," and this is the experience of very many who reach out for help in Christian Science but who perchance do not realize its full effect all at once. There was, however, no withholding of good on the divine side, for the divine purpose as here stated reads, "His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth."
