The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

2,6 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
progress, for it leads to the pit of despair. If the large
vision that takes in past and future only brings sorrow,
it would have been better for us to have retained the
limited range of animal perceptions. But faith sees in
the very experience of disappointment a ground for
fresh hope. The discovery that the height already
attained is not the summit of the mountain, although
it appeared to be when viewed from the plain, is a
proof that the summit is higher than we had supposed.
Meanwhile, the awakening of desires for further climbing
is a sign that the disappointments we have experienced
hitherto are not occasions for despair. If, as Shelley
goes on to say
—
" Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,"
the sadness cannot be without mitigation, for there
must be an element of sweetness in it from the first
and if so this must point to a future when this sadness
itself shall pass away. The author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews argues on these lines when he draws the
conclusion from the repeated disappointments of the
hopes of Israel in conjunction with the repeated promises
of God that '' there remaineth therefore a rest for the
people of God." ^ Instincts are God's promises written
in the Book of Nature. Seeing that our deepest instincts
are not satisfied by any of the common experiences of
life, they must point to some higher satisfaction.
Here we are brought to the explanation of the dis-
appointment itself. We must confess, in the first in-
stance, that it arises from the perverse habit of looking
for satisfaction in objects that are too low, objects that
are unworthy of human nature. This is one of the
' Hcb. iv. 9.
;