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giveth perfect peace hereafter to such as perfectly obey.
Havilah answered, If our friend Aza believed as the Christians believe, he would not mourn for his sons with so bitter a grief as at this very hour.
Is his grief, asked Eber, for them, or for himself, because he is left childless in his old age?
Many are the tears which he has shed, replied Havilah, when he has seen the sons of other men going forth to war, or joining the company in the pilgrimage: but his greatest fear and sorrow is for them, though they were his delight in their lives, and his pride in their death. In their religion they were faithful; their hands were clean, and their hearts pure.
Whence then are the fears of Aza?
The terrors of the judgment-day are ever before him. I have seen him look up to the sun; and, remembering how it shall one day leave its place[1], and afflict with a burning heat all who wait for judgment, cover his face with his garment. I have marked his clenched hands and frowning brow when he has heard how long men must stand in torment awaiting
- ↑ Prelim. Dissert. p. 86.
