28 THE CALL OF LIFE
solely and wholly by the sense that God had called him and predestined him. And that sense was so generally one of unmixed labour and pain that he is almost constantly found praying to be released from it. If Isaiah's watchword was: " Here am I — send me," Jeremiah's might have been, " I would be anywhere else but here — let me go." It was out of this besetting mood that the cry arose: "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men ! "
Let us look, first, at the prophet's wish to escape from life's stern demands ; and, secondly, at the obligation to persevere in the path of duty.
I.
The Wish to Escape.
1. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them ! " That is not a prayer for solitude. It is some wayside caravanserai or hotel that Jeremiah longs for ; and there he would have been far less alone than in his unshared home at Jerusalem. No, it is not a prayer for solitude, but a prayer to be set where a man can enjoy all the interest of life without having any of its responsibility; where all men are wayfarers and come and go, like the river past the bank on which you lie the long summer afternoon, and rouse your pity and help you to muse and perhaps to sing, but never touch your conscience ; where you may be an artist or a poet, or only a good fellow, but cannot possibly be required to be a prophet. It was so terrible to have to look below the surface of life, to know people long enough both to judge them with a keener conscience than them- selves and to love them with a breaking heart. Oh, to have no other work in life than to watch the street from the balcony window, than to feel the interest and glitter of life, and to achieve your duty towards your fellows by a kindliness and a courtesy that are never put to the strain of prolonged acquaintance !
The trade-routes had such places dotted along their course, where travellers and traders could put up for the night. The caravanserai was often a busy place, for all its cheerless furnish-
JEREMIAH ix. 2 29
ing; there would be men coming and going, hurrying on their pleasure or their business, merchants, court-officials, or ordinary- travellers, full of news and alive with interests of every kind. There, thought Jeremiah, I could feel at home ; I could content myself with letting things go unchallenged. He wanted evi- dently to be no more than a looker-on at life. He was tired, not so much of human beings as of responsibility for any of them. Out on the steppes, in a khan, he could still keep in touch with some currents of existence, and yet be no more than a cool, indifferent spectator.
TJ Thoreau, that singular American who has written some beautiful essays, who went and lived in the woods, says that he chose so to spend his days, " on the promenade deck of the world, an outside passenger, where I have freedom in my thought and in my soul am free." *
TJ Pythagoras was once asked contemptuously by a Greek tyrant who he was and what was his particular business in the world. The philosopher replied that at the Olympic games some people came to try for the prizes, some to dispose of their merchandise, some to enjoy themselves and meet their friends, and some to look on. " I," said Pythagoras, " am one of those who come to look on at life." Bacon, in telling the story, adds : "But men must know that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on." 2
2. What moved Jeremiah to harbour this wish ?
(1) He tells us himself that it was because he was so out of touch with the people, and because they had, as by a national apostasy, departed from God. He felt often as if he alone stood for God amid a faithless generation. " Eun ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth." And again he says, " Prom the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness ; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely." It was a terrible isolation in which he stood : in the crowded market-place this man was as much alone as in the widest solitudes. One faithful disciple we know he had, and a few there must have been who listened to his voice ; but
1 A. Ramsay, Studies in Jeremiah, 61.
2 J. Moffatt, Reasons and Reasons, 45.
30 THE CALL OF LIFE
these were so few and far between, and they were so little in evidence, that they did not affect the universal antipathy with which he was regarded. None shared his ideals ; none offered to God the worship of righteousness.
There are moments and moods when even a strong nature will feel tempted to escape, or to wish to escape, from the pressure of responsibility into a position where it would only be necessary to look on. Such was Jeremiah's case at this period of his career. He felt disappointed and disquieted with his age. He was at that critical phase of life when the first flush of enthusiasm, which throws men into eager contact with their fellows, has been succeeded by a profound sense of the corruption and self-will and greed which sometimes thwart an enterprise of religious or national reform. He had failed to carry the people with him ; he was unpopular ; and he was disheartened. At one moment he was ready to weep for his land. " Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." That is the anguish of a true patriot over evils which are being allowed to eat away the heart of a nation, over the rampant selfishness which forgets the rights and claims of God or of one's fellow-men, over the indifference of people to human pain and to Divine appeals.