"one long, hopeless protest against folly and crime." Earnestly he
besought his people to return to God before it was too late: "O
Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be
saved;"[24] but prayers and threats were alike of no avail, and
misfortunes began to afflict the land. Then Jeremiah shows himself a
true patriot. Though his people refused to hear him, he still loves
them and pleads their cause. In the horror of famine, he prays to God
in their behalf.

[Footnote 24: Ibid., ch. iv. v. 14.]

[Illustration: JEREMIAH. _Sistine Chapel, Rome._]

There are times even in the midst of disappointment when Jeremiah has
some gleam of hope for the future. He predicts the days when "a King
shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the
earth."[25] Such times he himself was never to enjoy. He lived to see
the Babylonian invasion, Jerusalem besieged and laid waste, and his
people taken captive. The reward of his faithful warnings was to be
cast into prison by the ungrateful King Zedekiah. Finally he was
carried by the remnant of his people into Egypt, where he died in a
sad and lonely old age.

[Footnote 25: Jeremiah, chapter xxiii. verse 5.]

Once in a moment of discouragement early in life, his grief had burst
forth in words which might well express the feelings of his old age:
"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!"[26]