The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

I02 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
country to the southern plains. But the phrase is a
familiar Hebraism for difficulties generally. No doubt
it was true of the Jews in this larger sense that their
opponents took advantage of their straitened circum-
stances to vex them in every possible way. This is
just in accordance with the common experience of
mankind all the world over. But while the fact of the
experience is obvious, the inference to which it points
hke an arrow is obstinately eluded. Thus a commercial
man in financial straits loses his credit at the very
moment when he most needs it. We cannot say that
this is a proof of spite, or even a sign of cynical indiffer-
ence ; because the needy person is really most untrust-
worthy, though his moral integrity may be unshaken,
seeing that his circumstances make it probable that he
will be unable to fulfil his obligations. But now it is
the deeper significance of this fact that is so persistently
ignored. There is perceptible at times in nature a law
of compensation by the operation of which misfortune
is mitigated ;
but that merciful law is frequently thwarted
by the overbearing influence of the terrible law of the
" survival of the fittest," the gospel of the fortunate,
but the death-knell for all failures. If this is so in
nature, much more does it obtain in human society so
long as selfish greed is unchecked by higher principles.
Then the world, the Godless world, can be no asylum
for the miserable and unfortunate, because it will be
hard upon them in exact proportion to the extremity
of their necessities. Moreover, the perception that this
bitter truth is not a fruit of temporary passions which
may be restrained by education, but the outcome of
certain persistent principles which cannot be set aside
while society retains its present constitution, gives to it
the adamantine strength of destiny.