Wonderful is the love of teacher and pupil! There is no blood relationship to fuse that love. No selfishness enters into it. There is only the common interest of the spirit upon which it feeds and grows. It is, therefore, a love of the purest type. Such a love was that of Jeremiah and his pupil, Baruch. Just as the friendship between Josiah and Jeremiah was lasting, because as boys they passed through the same danger at the time of the death of Josiah's father, and just as the friendship between David and Jonathan before them was knit closely together at the time when David was in flight before the anger of King Saul, so Jeremiah and Baruch were closely bound together in friendship and love from the very first night that they spent outside of Anathoth together, when the pupil saved his teacher's life from the conspiracy of his relatives. Who knows what would have happened to the despondent, disgraced, heart-broken old man that day had not Baruch warned him of the fate that awaited him in his home town! Yes! At fifty Jeremiah was an old man. His beard was gray, his hair white, his shoulders prematurely bent. Deep wrinkles, lines of care and woe, were furrowed in his face. Only at times, when he delivered his fiery addresses to the people or when he courageously faced an enemy like Pashhur, would he straighten up to his full height and show a semblance of his gaunt form and strong physique. Teacher and pupil passed many days and nights together in the foothills, undecided on the next step for Jeremiah to take. Just then he dared go neither to Anathoth nor to Jerusalem--and Baruch would not leave him. Fortunately, for both of them, old Ebed-melech, who had followed Jeremiah from the pillory to Pashhur's chamber and from there, at a distance, when he started for Anathoth, brought them food and drink late that first night of their hiding, and continued to do so every night. For the present Jeremiah had little hope of returning to his task in Jerusalem. He, therefore, often prayed to God in behalf of his people; but always the answer came back to him: "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? Therefore pray not thou for these people, Neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, Neither make intercession to me, For I will not hear thee." But the effect of prayer is mightier upon the persons who pray than upon those prayed for. While Jeremiah's prayers could not bring back the people of Judah to just and righteous lives without effort on their own part, and while Jeremiah knew well enough that God could not save these people simply because he prayed for them, yet the very act of praying brought comfort and consolation to the distracted and despondent prophet and to his loving pupil who clung to him.