For this story of Jeremiah's life is not a torso. Sacred biography constantly disappoints our curiosity as to the last days of holy men. We are scarcely ever told how prophets and apostles died. It is curious too that the great exceptions--Elijah in his chariot of fire and Elisha dying quietly in his bed--occur before the period of written prophecy. The deaths of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, Peter, Paul, and John, are passed over in the Sacred Record, and when we seek to follow them beyond its pages, we are taught afresh the unique wisdom of inspiration. If we may understand Deuteronomy xxxiv. to imply that no eye was permitted to behold Moses in the hour of death, we have in this incident a type of the reticence of Scripture on such matters. Moreover a moment's reflection reminds us that the inspired method is in accordance with the better instincts of our nature. A death in opening manhood, or the death of a soldier in battle or of a martyr at the stake, rivets our attention; but when men die in a good old age, we dwell less on their declining years than on the achievements of their prime. We all remember the martyrdoms of Huss and Latimer, but how many of those in whose mouths Calvin and Luther are familiar as household words know how those great Reformers died? There comes a time when we may apply to the aged saint the words of Browning's _Death in the Desert_:-- "So is myself withdrawn into my depths, The soul retreated from the perished brain Whence it was wont to feel and use the world Through these dull members, done with long ago." And the poet's comparison of this soul to "A stick once fire from end to end; Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark." Love craves to watch to the last, because the spark may "Run back, spread itself A little where the fire was.... And we would not lose The last of what might happen on his face." Such privileges may be granted to a few chosen disciples, probably they were in this case granted to Baruch; but they are mostly withheld from the world, lest blind irreverence should see in the aged saint nothing but "Second childishness, and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." FOOTNOTES: [173] Combined from verses 16, 17, and 25. [174] xv. 4. [175] As to the fulfilment of this prophecy see Chap. XVII. [176] MELEKHETH HASHSHAMAYIM. The Masoretic pointing seems to indicate a rendering "service" or work of heaven, probably in the sense of "host of heaven," _i.e._ the stars, מְלֶכֶת being written defectively for מְלֶאכֶת, but this translation is now pretty generally abandoned. Cf. C. J. Ball, Giesebrecht, Orelli, Cheyne, etc., on vii. 18, and especially Kuenen's treatise on the Queen of Heaven--in the _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, translated by Budde--to which this section is largely indebted. [177] Ezek. viii.