^| When a preacher has to say, " Who hath received our re- port ? " a true man's heart knows its own bitterness. The hopes of his day of ordination and the meagre results attained by all his labours go not well together.
In the glory of youth the young man went,
His heart with pride was stirred. They should yield, he cried, to the message sent
And force of the burning word.
The long years passed, and a wearied man
Crept back to the old home door; I have spoken my word and none has heard,
And the great world rolls as before.1
(2) He had none of the ordinary solaces by which such loneliness is relieved. He had neither wife nor child ; he had not the interest of any occupation outside of his prophetic career :
1 A. Ramsay, Studies in Jeremiah, 35.
JEREMIAH ix. 2 31
he was shut off from mingling in the social life of the people. Regretfully he tells us that he was not permitted to rejoice with the joyful or to sorrow with the sorrowful. What, then, is left to this lonely man ? Is not this a moment of general dissolution and shipwreck, when the terrible cry may be raised, " Let each man look to himself; let him save himself who can" ? The State was being broken up : monarchy, nation, ritual, temple were all being thrown into the whirlpool of ruin. The individual was being left to his own resources ; the best that could be hoped was that men might escape with their lives.
H We live in groups, in societies ; but these, after all, touch only upon our upper levels. Rarely do they reach the realm where we dwell. We live in crowded cities, but you can be lonelier in Fleet Street than in the centre of Sahara. Nature introduces us, at different stages of our career, to successive phases and varieties of loneliness. With many of us she begins early. Is there an acuter experience than that of the boy, away from the home he has never before left, on his first night at school ? To many a sensitive soul it has been the first night in hell. He will have many more nights there — to find what an excellent place hell is as a school of culture. Later on, he will meet his other lonelinesses. The higher his nature the more acute they will be. Think of the solitude of the man of genius ; of the leader, the teacher in advance of his age ! His followers have got a living personality in front of them ; the sight of him warms their hearts, stirs their enthusiasm. But what has he in front of him — Luther on his way to Worms, Jesus treading the road to Jerusalem ? No visible leader for them ; nothing for them but the invisible ! Who is there to comprehend them, who to share their inmost thought? Their cry is that of Confucius of old: " Alas ! there is no one that knows me, . . . but there is Heaven — that knows me." Solitude is the lot of all the teachers, of all the originals. Says Newman in one of his letters : " God intends me to be lonely. He has so framed my mind that I am in a great measure beyond the sympathies of other people, and thrown upon Himself." There he speaks for all who have trodden the higher pathways.1
3. We can all understand why such a wish, with all the power of an enchantment, should arise in this man's heart, for it has had a place in our own. Without a tithe of his reasons and excuse, 1 J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 153.
32 THE CALL OF LIFE
there can be few of us who have not felt the impulse to a self- regarding life. Why should we not limit our interests to our own concerns ? What hinders that we look only to our own ease and comfort and personal salvation ? Kingdom of God, Church of Jesus Christ, nation, city, condition of the people, cause of freedom and righteousness — all this that stands for what is beyond the individual and the selfish — why should we have a care for such things ? " Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodg- ing place of wayfaring men ! "
(1) We yearn for an escape from the responsibilities of life — not " all the weary weight of this unintelligible world," but just the burdens that lie at our own door. For as life advances — if it is being well lived — responsibilities are bound to gather. Business increases, influence extends, the life of the home is larger and fuller and deeper. In hours of high courage, too, and when the heart is strong, men enter on the public service of their city, and that weight must be carried through many a thankless day. So again is the prophet's mood begotten. Men long for release — to lay the burden down. They think how supremely happy life would be without the black care that sits behind the horseman. That thought was not a stranger to Jeremiah.
(2) We long to escape from monotony. When day after day men rise to the same task, when morning by morning — spring, summer, autumn, winter — the hands have to take up the same weary drudgery, then sooner or later comes the rebellious hour when the heart craves passionately for escape. That hour comes sometimes through the reading of books which bring home to us the rich and varied action of humanity ; sometimes when other lives that seem so unrestrained are brought into bitter contrast with our own ; and sometimes when the first signs of spring have come, when the awakening earth woos us to liberty, when the warmth of the sun and the breath of the wind are on us. In such ways the mood of rebellion is begotten. We fret and chafe at the dulness of our days. The dreary monotony of daily work grows odious. There surges within us the longing for release. That very longing surged in the noble heart of Jeremiah.