_Teacher and Pupil._
Wonderful is the love of teacher and pupil! There is no blood
relationship to fuse that love. No selfishness enters into it. There
is only the common interest of the spirit upon which it feeds and
grows. It is, therefore, a love of the purest type.
Such a love was that of Jeremiah and his pupil, Baruch. Just as the
friendship between Josiah and Jeremiah was lasting, because as boys
they passed through the same danger at the time of the death of
Josiah's father, and just as the friendship between David and Jonathan
before them was knit closely together at the time when David was in
flight before the anger of King Saul, so Jeremiah and Baruch were
closely bound together in friendship and love from the very first
night that they spent outside of Anathoth together, when the pupil
saved his teacher's life from the conspiracy of his relatives.
Who knows what would have happened to the despondent, disgraced,
heart-broken old man that day had not Baruch warned him of the fate
that awaited him in his home town!
Yes! At fifty Jeremiah was an old man. His beard was gray, his hair
white, his shoulders prematurely bent. Deep wrinkles, lines of care
and woe, were furrowed in his face. Only at times, when he delivered
his fiery addresses to the people or when he courageously faced an
enemy like Pashhur, would he straighten up to his full height and show
a semblance of his gaunt form and strong physique.
Teacher and pupil passed many days and nights together in the
foothills, undecided on the next step for Jeremiah to take. Just then
he dared go neither to Anathoth nor to Jerusalem--and Baruch would not
leave him.
Fortunately, for both of them, old Ebed-melech, who had followed
Jeremiah from the pillory to Pashhur's chamber and from there, at a
distance, when he started for Anathoth, brought them food and drink
late that first night of their hiding, and continued to do so
every night.
For the present Jeremiah had little hope of returning to his task in
Jerusalem. He, therefore, often prayed to God in behalf of his people;
but always the answer came back to him:
"Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in
the streets of Jerusalem?
Therefore pray not thou for these people,
Neither lift up cry nor prayer for them,
Neither make intercession to me,
For I will not hear thee."
But the effect of prayer is mightier upon the persons who pray than
upon those prayed for. While Jeremiah's prayers could not bring back
the people of Judah to just and righteous lives without effort on
their own part, and while Jeremiah knew well enough that God could not
save these people simply because he prayed for them, yet the very act
of praying brought comfort and consolation to the distracted and
despondent prophet and to his loving pupil who clung to him.
After some days spent in discussing various plans for returning to
Jerusalem, an inspiration came to Jeremiah. He would write out the
addresses he had previously delivered in Judah and Jerusalem and add
such new thoughts as occurred to him, exactly as the Prophet Amos had
done when he was driven out of Bethel to Tekoah!
Many weeks were then spent by Jeremiah in dictating, and by Baruch in
writing down the prophecies. At last, when the scroll was completed
and Baruch looked up into Jeremiah's face, as if to ask "What now?"
Jeremiah took the young man by the shoulders and looking straight into
his eyes, said to him:
"I cannot go into the house of the Lord; therefore, go thou,
and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth,
the words of the Lord in the ears of the people, in the Lord's
house upon the fast-day; and thou also shalt read them in the
ears of all Judah that come out of their cities.
"It may be they will present their supplication, before the
Lord, and will return every one from his evil way; for great
is the anger and the wrath that the Lord hath pronounced
against this people.
"It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil
which purpose to do unto them; that they may return every
man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and
their sin."
This suggestion, or rather command, for the moment stunned Baruch. He
was not prepared to devote his life to the work of God in behalf of
his people, as his master had done. The son and heir of Neriah, Baruch
had a splendid future before him. He was a young man, full of hope
that his country's trouble would end, and full of ambition to become a
great man in Judah's history; but he knew that if he accepted the
mission that the prophet was entrusting to him, he might as well give
up all thought of such a future. The same fate that had overtaken
Jeremiah would probably overtake him, too.
All this Baruch had told Jeremiah with hesitation and a trembling
voice. Jeremiah, both his hands resting on the young man's shoulders,
listened very sympathetically. He knew that the great ambitions of his
pupil could never be realized. The country was doomed to destruction,
unless a great religious and moral revolution should change the
character and the lives of the people.
For a moment Jeremiah looked straight into Baruch's eyes with the
tenderness of a mother. Then, embracing him tightly in his arms, he
pressed him to his heart and said:
"O Baruch! Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath
added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning--and I
find no rest. Thus shalt thou say unto him, Thus saith the
Lord: 'Behold, that which I have built will I break down
and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in
the whole land.'
"'And seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not;
for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh,' saith the
Lord; 'but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all
places whither thou goest.'"
For a long time Baruch's head was buried in Jeremiah's arms. Neither
spoke a word. Finally, when Jeremiah released Baruch from his embrace,
the young man's knees were shaking and he would have dropped to the
ground but for the support of Jeremiah's hands.
Tears streamed down his face. Baruch kissed his master's hands again
and again and cried out that he would go, that he would do Jeremiah's
bidding, which was God's bidding. "And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did
according to all that Jeremiah, the prophet, commanded him," and he
went down to Jerusalem and "read in the book, the words of the Lord,
in the Lord's house."