The Change in Religious Aspirations

“Oh that I had a lodging place in the wilderness!”” — JER. ix. 2.

HEN I read the words of Jeremiah always think of the familiar lines of a Scottish poet : —

“Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Oh to abide in the desert with thee!”

There is one thing common to both utterances; they both desire solitude for the sake of a joy. When Jeremiah cries, “Oh that I had a lodging place in the wilderness!” he is not seeking the desert because of its pain. This has been the common reason for the seclusion of the religious devotee — a wish to endure penance for his sin. But Jeremiah’s motive is the reverse of this. He wants to get away from the world that he may enjoy the unobstructed presence of God. Love delights to be alone with its object. If it seeks the wilderness, it is as a luxury. Jeremiah desires that luxury. The desert to him is a paradise, because he thinks of it as a trysting-place where he and his God can meet, alone. Not for its repulsiveness, but for its attractiveness, does he court that silent hour. He says, “The place will be no wilderness to me. The love of my heart will be there. There, far from the din of men, far from the madding crowd, I shall meet Thee, alone; and the wilderness shall break forth into singing and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Every thorn shall seem a fir-tree, every briar shall seem a myrtle-tree; the lion shall appear as a lamb and the leopard as a kid. For my love will transform my visions, and my heart will make all things new. I shall forget in Thy rest the city’s roar. I shall lose on Thy breast life’s bustle. I shall ignore under Thy wing Time’s withering hand. The conflict will be calmed. The vanities will be vanquished. The fashions will be faded. The ambitions will be amputated. The desires will be dead. The cares will be cancelled. The favour of men will be flouted. When I meet Thee in the solitudes of the wilderness, the world will pass

away.”

And yet, my soul, Jeremiah’s cry can no more be thine. Why can it no more be thine? Is it because thy love has grown cold? Is it because the world is dearer and God less precious? Is it because to meet face to face with Him is no longer thy heart’s joy? Nay, it is none of these. It is because the desert is no longer the place of meeting. Once my trysting-place was a tree — the symbol of rural loneliness; I stood under Abraham’s oak or Elijah’s juniper leaves. But now I have no need to seek my God there. The rural places are no longer the only consecrated places. My God has gone to the city — to the place where the concourse flows; my God has gone to the busy mart — to the place where commerce grows; my God has gone to the schoolhouse — to the place where culture sows. My God is at the marriage feast where Cana’s wine is shed; my God is in the famished crowd where pity’s board is spread; my God is with the helpless poor with no roof overhead. He waits for me in the songs of Galilee; He waits for me in the tears of Bethany; He waits for me in the crosses of Jerusalem. Not beside the tree but beside the traffic does He now love best to dwell. Not in the forest but in the forum, not in the solitude but in the street, not in the void but in the vortex, does He find His acceptable year. He has said, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest”; but the place where He ‘shall give me rest is not in the wilderness.