Well, time passed on. The people got no wiser, and Jeremiah’s burden certainly got no lighter. But the very chance he prayed for came. He had a clear and honourable opportunity to go to the lodge in the wilderness, or anywhere else he liked, away from the men who had disowned his teaching. His work was done apparently, and he had failed. Yet with the door standing invitingly open, see what Jeremiah did! He "went and dwelt among the people that were left in the land." He had his chance and he did not take it! We all know something of this desire to get rid of a present hard duty, or a difficult environment, or a perplexing problem. And yet I wonder, if the way were similarly opened up for us, how many would seize the opportunity? I believe that the feature of such a situation would just be the large number of us who, when it came to the pinch, would choose as Jeremiah did, to remain where we are! Something would hold us back. Yet the desire itself is natural enough, and a man need neither be a coward nor a weakling who confesses to it. The hours when the daily round seems altogether flat and unprofitable, and when one would gladly change places with almost anybody, are real hours in life, and it is no shame to have known them. But between that knowledge and the actual escape, the actual fleeing from one’s post, there is a great gulf fixed that, for very many with any high ideal of duty, is impassable. For, though a man has known the state of mind that looks for some back door out of a depressing situation, he has had the other experience also, the joy of self-mastery, the keen sense of pleasure that comes to him when he discovers that his surroundings do not count for so much as he himself does. That experience, though it be only in memory, will stand between a man and retreat. He has conquered before, and the thrill of victory over material discouragements may be his again. And so, though the way of escape be open, he will choose to remain and fight it out. Sometimes the mere weight of his responsibility may tempt a man to wish that he might escape. There is a fairly well-known symptom of nervous disease whose name signifies the fear of being shut in, when the patient dreads the experience of being in any closed place. Sometimes a moral panic of that kind comes to a man when he realises that he is shut in with some duty which must be gone through with. With something of the instinct of the trapped animal he may look round for a way of escape. Yet does that mean that he would take the chance deliberately, with eyes full open to the consequences, if it were offered? I think not.