And this, writes Jeremiah, is the answer he received:[23] “Say not, I am a child:  for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.  Be not afraid of their faces:  for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.  Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth.  And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.  See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”

[Footnote 23:  Jeremiah, chapter i. verses 6-10.]

Thus Jeremiah became a prophet, and from that time on his life was “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]

[Footnote 26:  Jeremiah, chapter ix. verse 1.]

All the pathos of these words is conveyed in Michelangelo’s wonderful figure of Jeremiah.  The story of his life is written in his face and attitude.  He is an old man, with long gray beard, but he still has the splendid vigor which comes from plain and simple living.  He sits with bowed head, lost in thought, his long life passing in review before his mind’s eye.  His message is spoken, his race is run; he is weary of life and longs to die.  There is something inexpressibly moving in his profound melancholy.

The painter has placed just behind the prophet two little figures which are like attendant spirits.  They seem to sympathize with Jeremiah’s sorrows.  The figures ornamenting the sculptured niche remind us of those in the background of the Holy Family and have a similar decorative purpose.