this horrible fate; but not before he had undergone sufferings of the severest character, as may easily be understood from his own simple narrative, and from the indelible impression wrought upon others by the record of his sufferings, which led the poet of the Lamentations to refer to this time of deadly peril, and torture both mental and physical, in the following terms: "They chased me sore like a bird, They that were my foes without a cause. They silenced my life in the pit, And they cast a stone upon me. Waters overflowed mine head; Methought, I am cut off. I called Thy name, Iahvah, Out of the deepest pit. My voice Thou heardest (saying), 'Hide not Thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.' Thou drewest near when I called Thee; Thou saidst, 'Fear not'! Thou pleadedst, O Lord, my souls pleadings; Thou ransomedst my life." After this signal escape, Jeremiah's counsel was once more sought by the king, in a secret interview, which was jealously concealed from the princes. But neither entreaties, nor assurances of safety, could persuade Zedekiah to surrender the city. Nothing was now left for the prophet, but to await, in his milder captivity, the long foreseen catastrophe. The form now taken by his solitary musings was not anxious speculation upon the question whether any possible resources were as yet unexhausted, whether by any yet untried means king and people might be convinced, and the end averted. Taking that end for granted, he looks forth beyond his own captivity, beyond the scenes of famine and pestilence and bloodshed that surround him, beyond the strife of factions within the city, and the lines of the besiegers without it, to a fair prospect of happy restoration and smiling peace, reserved for his ruined country in the far-off yet ever-approaching future (xxxii., xxxiii.).