Jeremiah's Call.

Josiah and Jeremiah passed through the first great and vital experience of their lives together and the friendship between these two lads was thereby knit as closely as was that of David and Jonathan.

From the very beginning of Josiah's mounting the throne of Judah, this friendship promised even to outrival that of the king's great ancestor and Saul's son. Every day Hilkiah had to bring Jeremiah to the palace, because the young king was not permitted to leave Jerusalem and go to Anathoth.

One of the very first official acts of the king was to make Ebed-melech a freedman; but the young Ethiopian chose to remain at the palace in Jerusalem, to be at the right hand of his master, even to put the young king to bed, for many years after he was crowned, as he had done the baby prince.

This friendship of Josiah and Jeremiah had an unlooked-for effect upon the former; for, though teachers in all the subjects that pertained to the education of the young king were appointed, Hilkiah, the high priest, practically became the young monarch's guardian and father.

In fact, the older Josiah grew the more he understood the love of Hilkiah for him and the heroic act he had performed in saving him on that terrible night of the conspiracy.

So it happened that while the boy king was instructed by special tutors in the laws and intricacies of government, his religious and moral training came under the influence of Hilkiah. This meant that the moral qualities that make for manhood and character, and the principles of religious belief that were developed in Josiah, were identical with those that Hilkiah taught his own son.

At the suggestion of Hilkiah, a cousin of the young king, named Zephaniah, a member of the Prophetic Party and follower of the teachings of Isaiah, was appointed Josiah's religious instructor. The king, therefore, grew up in total ignorance of the idolatrous religious beliefs and practices introduced by his grandfather, Manasseh, and practiced by his father, Amon.

Josiah was so busy with the many things relating to the government of his kingdom that he had no time to study his religion very deeply, but the moral influence of Zephaniah and Hilkiah was very apparent in his development and showed their effect in his later years.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, received an education on much broader and more general lines. Not burdened with cares of state, he studied first of all the history of his own people and his own religion, and the history and religion of the other peoples with whom his country came in contact. In his religious training he was grounded deeply in the religious history of now almost forgotten Israel as well as of Judah. He paid special attention to the moral and religious condition of his country and of its people and made himself master of his father's ideals, which meant the ideals and hopes of the older prophets.

As Jeremiah advanced in years and Josiah took the reins of government more and more into his own hands, the former's visits to the palace became less and less frequent.

Jeremiah delighted to stay in Anathoth. He spent many hours studying in his own room. He roamed among the barren hills near his village from which, looking down the ravine, a view could be had of the blue waters at the north end of the Dead Sea.

He often came across the many altars that had been erected on the high hills and in thick groves in imitation of the heathen. Even in the city of Jerusalem, the religious legacy left by King Manasseh had not been destroyed. The Temple Courts were desecrated by images and the Temple itself defiled by idolatrous practices.

The teachings of his father and the religious influence of his home were great factors in turning Jeremiah's mind to view these abominations with alarm for his people. Idolatry and heathen worship led the people to practice vice and commit crimes that were abhorrent to the religious ideas and ideals taught by such men as Amos, Hosea and Isaiah in the days gone by, and by Zephaniah and Hilkiah in Jeremiah's time.

Now Jeremiah knew very well that when Josiah reached the age of manhood the influence of Zephaniah and Hilkiah upon him would tell. He felt quite sure that, in due time, religious and moral reforms would be introduced into the country by the king. He was convinced, nevertheless, that a movement for reform of some kind must come from the people at large as well as from the king.

Sometimes he thought that the people ought to be prepared for the reforms that Josiah would surely introduce. Often, therefore, he felt the voice of God speaking within him, urging him on to go down into the city and there speak to the people of the living God, of His love for them and of His religious and moral demands upon them.

One day, in the early spring, while roaming among the hills, meditating upon the thoughts that consumed all his waking hours, he stopped before an almond tree. It was just beginning to shoot its earliest leaves. He contemplated this wonderful miracle of nature. He saw the hand of God working through that tree; he saw that God must be very watchful over the things He created; he saw in that tree a symbol—God's message to him that the immoral and ungodly people of Jerusalem and Judah could be awakened to a new life, even as the almond tree was blooming into new life.

At another time he was watching carelessly a boiling caldron. A wind unexpectedly came up from the north, so strong that Jeremiah thought the caldron would turn over and empty its contents upon the ground. In this, too, Jeremiah saw a symbol—a call from God to warn the people of Judah against the oncoming of the Scythian hordes that were roaming at large over the once great Assyrian empire, even reaching the little states along the Mediterranean.

One night, in his room, Jeremiah was thinking over these and similar incidents that had been happening to him quite frequently of late. Though ready to retire, he knew that he could not sleep, because a terrible restlessness was consuming his mind and heart.

Noiselessly, he stole out of the house into the open. It was one of those wonderful full-moon, spring nights, when the sky is clear blue, unclouded and studded with myriads of stars, stars, stars.

Jeremiah breathed in deeply and tramped out into the hills. He walked lightly, as on air, without fatigue. A strange feeling, as if he wished to get away from himself, drove him on. Finally, he reached a point from which he could discern the most northerly corner of the Dead Sea. For awhile he stood in his favorite spot and meditated, though he could not, for the world of him, say what was passing through his mind.

He pressed his temples with his open palms, hoping in that way to clear up the jumble of thoughts tumbling about in his head. He clenched his fists. He beat the palm of his left hand with the fist of his right. He raised his arms to heaven, as if pleading for advice and guidance. He was, evidently, passing through a great, inward struggle.

Then he heard a voice, clearly and distinctly, saying over and over again:

Before I formed thee, I knew thee;
Before thou camest forth, I sanctified thee.
I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.

and he knew that God was speaking to him.

A stifled groan escaped his lips. The muscles of his face and body, tense up to this moment, relaxed. He dropped to his knees and gave up the fight. He buried his face in his arms and cried, in a muffled voice:

Alas, O Lord God!
Behold, I do not know how to speak;
I am only a youth.

This plea showed clearly what inward agonies Jeremiah had been through. Timid by nature, he shrank from God's call to him to go out and prophesy to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and he struggled against it. Although he was now a young man of twenty-four or five, he feared to undertake this great task and to answer the call. He felt that he was yet too young and unprepared to deliver the message of God to his people.

But God answered him, saying:

Do not say, "I am only a youth";
For to all to whom I shall send thee, thou shalt go,
And whatever I command thee, thou shalt speak.
Be not afraid of them,
For I am with thee to deliver thee.

And Jeremiah tells us that God, having stretched out His hand toward him and touched his lips to purify them, spoke to him further:—

Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth;
See, I have set thee this day over the nations and kingdoms,
To tear up, to break down and to destroy, to build up and to plant.

Now that God had selected him for a distinct and set purpose in life, no matter how incapable and unworthy he deemed himself, and being assured of His help and protection, Jeremiah walked slowly homeward. For the first time he noticed that the sun had risen big and bright and warm. His mind was calm and at rest, but his heart was filled with woe because of what the future held out for him and his people.